I seem to have made it my side-mission this year to encourage as many people as I can to join (and actually use) Bluesky with varying levels of success until quite recently…but now things are heating up nicely due to the shenanigans of the Muskrat X-where.

Though there is every chance the site might follow the path that Google’s Orkut took back in the day and become a primarily Brazilian user-base judging by the MASSIVE influx from there this weekend!

At the moment though the site has become a cosy home for the UK internet of public service peoples plus a growing number of policy wonks, journos, librarians and academics. There are also a decent amount of comic pros and movie nerds using the platform and in general it feels like 2016/17 Twitter – friendly, geeky, helpful, funny, a little mono-culture but generally a good hang.

The Bluesky team seem to be doing a solid job of keeping things running as it rapidly scales and have a really thoughtful approach to new features – making privacy and safety a priority rather than chasing growth at all costs. Honestly I don’t know how long this kind of social network model has left full stop but while it does Bluesky feels like a suitable haven for the Gen X and Millennial folks scared of TikTok etc 🙂

I have curated too big ‘starter packs’ of folks worth following (these provide a one click follow for 150 ish accounts each) if the fear of having to rebuild your network is putting you off trying Bluesky – though I expect most people reading this are already giving it a try.

See you there?