Decentralized social media platform Bluesky just hit one million downloads across iOS and Android following the launch of Meta’s “Twitter Killer” app, Threads.
It experienced its first spike in sign-ups last weekend, after Twitter-owner Elon Musk announced a rate limit to the number of tweets users can see per day, driving users to seek and try out other alternatives.
Due to the high volume of sign-up requests, the Bluesky team had even paused sign-ups temporarily in fear that the large number of users would affect the app’s performance.
Research from artificial intelligence company data.ai also revealed that the company hit 300,000 downloads since June 30, attributing the increase to the Threads rollout.
Bluesky Remains Far Behind Competitors
While it may seem like a feat, Bluesky is still struggling to catch up with its towering competitors, with Threads surpassing 30 million on its first day.
Twitter has also added 72 million first-time downloads at the time Bluesky was working its way to a million, data.ai revealed. This means the decentralized platform was racking up an estimated 8,300 first-time downloads a day, while Twitter was averaging 518,000 in new installs.
Bluesky, which first launched as an invite-only app, was first announced in 2019 but had gained attention after ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s publicly supported its development in 2021.
According to the company, the Dorsey-backed service aims to give its users and communities more power when it comes to speech and moderating content.
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