- The Washington Times - Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Users looking for an alternative to X no longer have to wait for an invite. Bluesky opened to everyone this week and landed more than 800,000 new users in just 24 hours.

Bluesky opened its doors to all users on Tuesday after months of operating on an invite-only system.

According to Bluesky’s numbers, the site is expected to reach over 4 million users by the end of the week, making it one of the fastest-growing social media sites of its size.

The influx of customers caused some technical issues. Users reported they couldn’t access their feeds Tuesday night, but the issue was seemingly fixed by early Wednesday.

The site has the potential to grow more, even as it faces competition from other grassroots and established brands. Mastodon, its most easily identifiable rival, has more than double the users of Bluesky at around 8 million. Meta’s new “Twitter killer” Threads also threatens to captivate potential customers with 130 million users and rising.

Bluesky, like many other fledgling social media sites that have popped up in the past year, seeks to capitalize on rumbling from X. When the social media giant’s owner, Elon Musk, announced in September that X might charge every user a small fee, Bluesky saw a surge in popularity despite still being invited only.

Despite siphoning off some users, X remains the top dog with over 200 million daily active users.

Launched last February, Bluesky seeks to stand out by giving users more customization options. According to CEO Jay Graber, the site will soon launch federation features that let users prioritize posts from different users and toggle content moderation restrictions for edgy content.

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Please read our comment policy before commenting.