Monat: Oktober 2023

Allgemein, Social MEdia

Bluesky and the german Bubble

I had already reported on Bluesky the other day. It is portrayed in many places that it is more of a duet retreat. In fact, the percentage of German posts is in the single digits (thanks to Aurel Wünsch, who analysed this).

But how can one establish comparability? Since absolute numbers are difficult, let’s take an example from the local bubble: Here we have the “FotoVorschlag” (“photo suggestion”) who is active on X (aka Twitter), as well as on Bluesky. He posts a topic every day and those who are interested can then post a suitable picture of their own on the topic below it. What makes it exciting is that he posts at about the same time each day with the exact same text and hashtags (although these are “still” unnecessary on Bluesky).

I have now looked at the posts over a period of time, starting a few weeks before the Bluesky account even started. But let’s start with the systematics:

Synopsis of some Tweets and the pendant on Bluesky

(Fun fact: Here you can see the similarities between Bluesky and X quite clearly) I have picked out two that Fotovorschlag published on Bluesky and X on 23.10.2023 respectively. Note: You can’t see the number of replies directly on Bluesky, but only in the search.

Now I have measured the interactions, i.e. how many likes, replies and responses the respective post has received. I calculated these numbers on two dates and they are therefore related to a specific date. If you check them today, they may be slightly different. As of yesterday, Fotovorschlag on X has put a lock in front of it, so a direct comparison is no longer possible. So I have finished the measurement with this.

Disclaimer: Yes, I know that the empirical relevance is manageable as only the “bubbles” from the photo suggestion are compared here and no conclusion can be drawn about the totality.

Back to the numbers: In Excel it looks like this:

X vs. Bluesky: What happens? Trends of the innteractions for two months. Bluesky is rising, x is falling down.

The outliers are exciting: If the highest value of interactions on X reached 402 (the sum of all replies, retweets (at that time) and likes), this peak value on Blueksy is 589. So you can see that in a very, very short period of time the interest has shifted a lot from the bubble of “photo suggestion”.

If anyone is interested in the Excel with the raw data, please contact me.

Here is the article in German.

Allgemein

Bluesky, the new Twitter?

In recent weeks, a “new” social network has been cited more and more frequently: Bluesky. What exactly is Bluesky (here on LinkedIn) and what is it all about?


At the moment it is “Invite Only”, so an existing user on Bluesky can invite someone about every 10 days: With this code they can then register (by the way, journalists, just like companies, can get an accelerated account via the white list). Bluesky is a project by Jack Dorsay (initial), the former CEO of the then so-called network “Twitter”, which now goes by the name X.


Since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, some changes have taken place there: verified accounts have been abolished, and instead subscription customers get a hook. In addition, moderation has been restricted and bots are flooding the platform. This has led to advertisers increasingly withdrawing from the platform. This intensified when Elon Musk directly voted against humanitarian aid of sea rescue. With the Hamas attack on Israel, so much fake potential was displayed that even the EU felt compelled to write a letter to X here urging redress (Here is the original post on X).

The result was that major clients and authorities are now withdrawing from X (aka Twitter) and leaving the field to the mainstream on Twitter.


But where to find alternatives? Besides Mastodon (which somehow doesn’t get off the ground), Bluesky scored particularly well here. One reason is that it feels like Twitter 10 years ago. Due to the (still prevailing) invite policy. The range of functions is still limited (no DM, no animated GIF, no videos), but it is easy to use. Above all: it’s a constructive exchange, just like you remember Twitter.


I (so that’s a purely subjective assessment) feel comfortable on Bluesky and there are many accounts I’m familiar with that you can exchange ideas with. Currently it’s more “left-wing”, hardly any conservative accounts, to the right of Polenz, which I regret very much. But they are coming gradually.


Gunnar Sohn sees it a little differently.

This article in german.