Bluesky

My exploration for new and alternative social media platforms is coming to an end. Over the past couple years I joined dozens of social media platforms in search for the better ones for me. In my last post on this subject, I did a lot of editorializing but with this post I'll be brief and present the with the list of social media platforms and websites where I have a presence. This list may continue to shrink in 2025.

My quest continues in 2024 to find better social media platforms! While Mastodon is currently my favorite social media platform for engagement, it's unfortunately not the platform many of those that I followed or followed me on Twitter. Many of these friends and acquaintances have either migrated to Bluesky, Threads, or stayed on Twitter/X. I've been busy looking at these other alternatives.

One of the neat things about Bluesky is that you have the ability to use an Internet domain as your handle on Bluesky. So for instance, instead of having @bryanruby.bsky.social as my handle, I now have @bryanruby.com as my handle. In the world of decentralization, this allows you to have the same username no matter what application/platform/server you're on. This is one of the advantages of the AT Protocol which Bluesky is built on.

I plan on writing more about why this feature matters and how it is done at a later date.

I have come to both hate and love social media platforms since joining them in the early days via Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. There are some days I just want to quit all social media. Yet, social media has become an indispensable tool for communication, connection, information sharing, and in some cases building community. For years Twitter was my favorite for microblogging, but as X, for better or worse, it's no longer the valued social network it once was for me. Like many of you, I've been looking for an alternative to Twitter.