Bluesky is taking quite a few pages out of the social media handbook. The decentralized social app has announced it’s working on new features like DMs, video and improved Custom Feeds. The company opened to the public in February and claims it grew from 40,000 to 5.6 million users in one year.
DMs are an especially noteworthy edition as, currently, all posts on Bluesky are public, but the company’s new DM option will integrate directly into the app. These messages should initially be available only one-to-one, and users can restrict who can reach out by choosing between the options open, followed users only, and disabled. The company uses an open-source framework, but the development of DMs will initially be “off-protocol,” so Bluesky can “iteratively” create them.
Videos are in the works, with Bluesky projecting that clips up to 90 seconds long can be shared. The company is exploring a bunch of ideas for Custom Feeds, including a space for trending feeds, in-app feed creation and overall improved feed discovery. Bluesky is also getting OAuth and hopes users can one day “Log In with Bluesky.”
None of Bluesky’s impending updates have a release date yet, but the company expects to roll them all out over the next couple of months. The platform was notably backed by Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter. However, Dorsey recently confirmed that he was no longer on Bluesky’s board.