Don't Be A Bird, Be An Alligator: Bluesky & How to Use It

Since Elon Musk took over destroyed Twitter X there have been several attempts at coming up with a replacement:  Mastodon, Facebook's Threads, and Bluesky, which is from the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.  The thing about Bluesky is you can only get in with an invite code.  When Al Sirois had a few he wasn't using he gave one to me.  I wasn't begging for it, but if he had a spare one then what the hell, I'd see what the deal was with it.

And as the headline says:  it's just old Twitter.  I mean, seriously, everything looks and works the same as Twitter before Musk's takeover.  I was then a bit underwhelmed.  As far as I can tell there aren't really any different features than old Twitter.  I'm not paying for it so it's less annoying than if, say, they released Madden 2024 and it was the exact same game as Madden 2018.  Sometimes I actually like old versions better, like Paint Shop Pro 4.12 is so much easier to use than later versions that try to be PhotoShop.

But, I don't know, it just seems weird that Dorsey takes Twitter public, leaves, lets it get taken over by a rich douche, and then goes and creates exactly the same product somewhere else.  It'd be like if after Steve Jobs got fired by Apple in the 80s he started a new company that made computers exactly like Macs or Apple IIs and called them Red Delicious or Granny Smiths or some other kind of apple.

The big selling point for Bluesky is that because it's invite only there are a lot fewer spammers and trolls.  I'm not sure how long that can last.  It's like the old South Park where Cartman buys an amusement park and closes it so only he can enjoy it.  But eventually to pay for the upkeep he has to start letting more and more people in.  Unless Dorsey wants to pay for everything out of his own pocket forever, I'm not sure how long it can go on being invite only.  The three scenarios I see are:

1. Opening it to everyone, thus letting in the trolls and spammers
2. Charging people to use the site, which will probably cause the third scenario...
3. Close down entirely  

Maybe because I was never really into Twitter even before the Musk takeover, I'm not really that impressed with Bluesky.  Since it's just a clone of old Twitter it also has all of the same problems.  If you're a nobody like me, then it's almost impossible to get anyone to notice you.  I can post all I want and no one will care because I have no "platform."  It's fine for big-time authors like Neil Gaiman or John Scalzi because they have large numbers of fans who will clamor to hear whatever they have to say, even if it's not particularly that much more interesting.  

It winds up where most of the people I really would have interaction with I'm also following on Facebook, thus making Bluesky largely redundant for me.  And like I said, unless you have a "platform," it's really useless as a marketing tool.  Maybe I can get a few bot hits for my blog, but that's really it.  And that's probably true for most everyone else.

Another thing is like with dollar coins not really catching on because you can't use them in vending machines and such, other companies (like Blogger) need to add Bluesky posting buttons.  As long as the site is invite only I'm not sure there's much impetus for companies to do this, which then limits its usefulness.  I mean if I have to manually copy and paste links to my Bluesky account that's more work than using X or Facebook and you don't get ahead in this world asking people to do slightly more work.  I'm just saying.

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I had a revelation on Tuesday about Bluesky--and for that matter Twitter if you still use that--and realized that I was doing it wrong.  Following writers wasn't making my feed very interesting.  Why?  Because they just post dad jokes, inspirational quotes, and links to shit I don't want to buy.  And 99.9% of them are useless for me from a marketing standpoint because they aren't in my target audience and don't have an audience much bigger than mine and don't "Repost" when I do advertise anyway.  I mean, I advertised putting the 10th Anniversary Scarlet Knight bundle on sale for 99 cents until Saturday and no one did anything.  So pretty useless.

And as far as "social" media, how many conversations had I had?  Zero.  I talked at people once or twice.  Got a couple of snotty comments, one big stuffing because he has a publisher and one "Aaaaaactually"-ing me for something I didn't even say.

It all led me to thinking, "What do I want out of this?"  I'm not making "friends," just as I never really made any on old Twitter.  It's useless for marketing unless you're famous.  If I want to spout off, I'm likely to get more interaction from my few Facebook "friends" than random people on New or Old Twitter.  These were all things proven on Old Twitter and while there are fewer people on New Twitter it's still the same deal.

I found one account posting toy news and deals, which to me was pretty cool.  And it hit me that that's the kind of thing I should follow.  Not just toy news and deals but writing industry news, regular news news, box office news, and maybe sports news.  Basically New and Old Twitter for people like me should just be used as a news/deals/gossip aggregator.  That's about the only purpose it has is to funnel news, deals, and gossip to me.  Facebook with its precious "algorithm" makes that hard so New Twitter, aka Bluesky, is probably better.  Except that some things aren't on there, so maybe Old Twitter would still be better in some ways.

So for most of us, "social" media like this shouldn't really be social.  We should just be lying low and listening for anything interesting, kind of like a spy listening to chatter and picking out juicy tidbits.  Or an alligator or crocodile lurking in the water, waiting for something to get in reach of its jaws.  So instead of a bird or sky they should make the logo an alligator or crocodile.  It would be more fitting.

Anyway, let me know if you want an invite code.  I got one on Saturday and I still have it.  Then you can try New Twitter for yourself.