Image: © Koshiro/Stock.adobe.com
User engagement on Bluesky is higher when compared to X, according Bluesky CEO Jay Graber.
Bluesky, the social media platform positioning itself as an alternative to the controversy-marred X, is seeing a massive influx of activity following the US election results last week.
The decentralised social media platform now has more than 15m users – with the Verge reporting that it gained 700,000 new users over the last week.
Bluesky had 14.6m users yesterday (12 November), with the number speeding past 15m today, indicating a meteoric rise in user-count by nearly 400,000 in just one day.
Currently, the platform ranks first in the US Apple App Store, with Meta-owned Threads, WhatsApp and Facebook trailing closely behind.
User engagement on Bluesky is higher when compared to X, according to Bluesky CEO Jay Graber in a post on the platform, adding that the trend is “consistent”, and not an election anomaly.
“Engagement is higher on Bluesky – we’ve seen this trend consistently, not just for the past few weeks.”
Less than a month ago, Bluesky reported reaching 13m users and announced a successful $15m Series A funding to grow its business.
Since being bought by Elon Musk, X – formally known as Twitter – severed all ties to Bluesky, a former Twitter-funded project, which has seen several incidents of surges in its user-base in relation to controversies around X – which include incidents of misleading content and disinformation spreading across the platform.
Recently, Bluesky claimed a massive wave of followers during the same weekend that X got banned in Brazil.
The platform was announced in 2019 and aimed to create an “open and decentralised standard for social media”. The app shares similarities with Twitter – before it became X – in terms of design and function. Beginning as an invite-only app, Bluesky had more than 3m sign-ups before it went public earlier this year. Since going public, the platform has gained nearly 12m users in less than 10 months.
A prominent supporter of the US president-elect Donald Trump, X CEO Musk was today (13 November) appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which according to Trump will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” and will work with the White House to “drive large-scale government reform”.
Updated, 14:55pm, 13 November 2024: This article has been amended to show that Bluesky user count has crossed 15m.
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