Glad to be on Bluesky, although it’s not yet all it needs to be

 

 

So I read this morning in The Washington Post that Bluesky is now open to us plebeians who didn’t get invited to join the new Twitter replacement (that’s the way I’m viewing it, anyway) previously.

About time.

You know about Bluesky. It’s the latest brainstorm of Jack Dorsey, the guy who created Twitter long before the barbarians knocked down the gates and started destroying it.

So of course, I immediately signed up and started looking about.

And it looks great. The interface is SO much like Twitter of old that I immediately hope that the new platform doesn’t get sued by Attila et al. Very comfortable. And I’ve tweeted (or whatever we’re supposed to call the action) a couple of times, and gotten a few likes, and it feels like old times.

Of course, a lot of stuff will have to happen before it can be what Twitter was. For instance, more people I’m used to following need to sign up and get busy. And that includes a lot of the media sites I follow, not just individual people.

There were some old friends already there, which prompted that petulant first post from me, which went like this:

Now that I’m finally in here, I see that SOME of my friends were invited long ago. Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph…

I’m sure there will be a lot more people on board tomorrow, and the day after, and so on. I’m very hopeful. But aside from way more accounts, the site will need a few other things to live up to my hopes:

  • Embed codes. Note that I simply quoted my post, rather than embedding. Maybe there’s a way to do that, but it’s not yet readily apparent. I just get a “copy link.”
  • Speaking of embedding… When I’m reading something on one of my newspaper apps on my iPad, and want to say something about it on Bluesky, and click on the “share” thingy, I see all sorts of icons, but not one for Bluesky. I’m not sure whose responsibility it will be to fix this — will each newspaper have to make changes in the app, or is it up to Apple? Anyway, I hope they soon get on the stick.
  • A few publications I’m used to following don’t even have accounts on Bluesky. Are they aware it exists? When will they jump in?
  • Even those who DO have accounts — such as The Washington Post — are only putting a small amount of their content on the platform. Weirdly, they’re posting links to some stories — such as the one about Bluesky itself, and one about Taylor Swift — multiple times. But I couldn’t find one to this story, and together with the lack of a direct link from the newspaper app, I had to do a sort of double workaround to post about it. It worked fine, but it should be way easier. And I’m hoping it will be, soon.

Enough griping. Let me say that even though I had to do some manual stuff to post about that story, when I entered the link, I was immediately asked if I wanted the headline and artwork to automatically appear in the post — the way it used to be on Twitter. There wasn’t a “hell, yeah” option, so I just said yes.

And I’m sure, now that I’ve put this post on the platform, some of those long-time members will respond that I’m an idiot, and all these things are already there, but I haven’t found them yet. Fine. Maybe they’ll help me.

Anyway, I hope to see some of y’all there…

4 thoughts on “Glad to be on Bluesky, although it’s not yet all it needs to be”

  2. Barry

    Julie Mason (longtime reporter with the Houston Chronicle) today on her Sirius radio show on channel 124 said she had deleted Twitter (X) and was encouraging other journalists to do the same.

    She is extremely well connected with Washington journalists and has a ton of them on her show.

    She said the way over the top racist comments she was routinely receiving via X were just too much. She mentioned it had always been an issue but it had become a lot worse recently.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      I don’t see content like that on Twitter. I guess it’s because I follow what I follow.

      My objections to what has happened to Twitter are more technical. Musk has been steadily destroying its functionality…

      1. Barry

        I saw tons of it when I was on Twitter and I wasn’t looking for it. I deleted it about 6 months ago.

        It’s even worse now from everything I’ve read.

        Julie said some of the things she was getting on a daily basis were just things she couldn’t stomach anymore- and she mentioned that she was a seasoned reporter and had seen it all over the years.

        The porn stuff, the escort service type stuff, and even child porn stuff is supposedly way out of hand as well based on what I’ve read.

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