With Bluesky, Jack Dorsey has another go at Twitter-like service

Jack Dorsey is taking another whack at a Twitter-like service with a new social media platform called Bluesky.

The service is gaining traction among Twitter power users, attracting prominent personalities including leftwing US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bluesky, which bears similarities to the blue bird platform, is the latest in a long list of apps that are looking to steal Twitter's thunder after Elon Musk's takeover of the company.

Here are some details on the service:

What is Bluesky?

It's a text-focused social media service launched for select users in February. Users can post short messages of up to 300 characters, and pictures. There is no support for videos and direct messages, or DMs, so far.

Bluesky runs on a decentralised framework, similar to social network Mastodon. It allows users to build independent social media experiences and users can join a specific "server", which has its own unique set of rules, interests and participants.

How does it compare to Twitter?

Bluesky offers a similar experience to Twitter — people create profiles and post short messages with text and images. On the timeline, Bluesky has "What's hot" and "Following" feed, similar to the curated "For You" and the chronological "Following" feeds on Twitter.

Unlike Twitter, Bluesky's core framework allows for various customisations. "Instead of one site running the network, you can have many sites. It means you get a choice of provider, and individuals and businesses can self-host if they want," it said in a blog post in October.

Who is behind Bluesky?

It was started by Dorsey as a project within Twitter in 2019 and was set up as an independent company in 2022. As of April 2022, it had raised $13 million from Twitter.

Dorsey, Jeremie Miller, the inventor of communication protocol Jabber/XMPP, and Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, are its board members.