Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as soon as stated of Twitter “they drove a clown car into a gold mine”—a jab on the firm’s historical past of chaotic administration and erratic decision-making. Today, although, it feels prefer it’s Zuck who’s driving a clown automobile round his empty Metaverse, whereas Twitter is taking the lead within the subsequent period of social media.
On Tuesday, a Twitter-backed crypto Skunk Works group referred to as Bluesky launched an internet site for a decentralized social media mission it’s calling the AT (aka “@”) Protocol, and introduced a waitlist for a Bluesky app that may let folks use it. The concept behind that is to reinvent social media in order that it’s not primarily based on silos, however as an alternative permits customers to speak throughout totally different platforms—think about a world the place you may use Instagram to ship messages or images to associates on Snapchat.
The concept of utilizing blockchain to remake social media as decentralized media has been effervescent up for some time. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stated in 2019 that his aim was for the corporate to at some point turn into a shopper of the decentralized normal, and, in 2021, a startup known as DeSo (for “decentralized social”) raised $200 million. This summer time, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried instructed me he views social media as one among three killer apps for blockchain within the quick time period.
It shall be a tall order, after all, for one thing like Bluesky to mount a severe problem to Zuckerberg’s Facebook-Instagram-WhatsApp empire that has billions of customers. That stated, the time feels proper for such a problem given the rising frustration amongst each politicians and customers concerning the management corporations like Meta and Google exert over our lives. Few predicted how social media would problem conventional media till it ate its lunch. Change within the tech world usually occurs all of the sudden.
There’s additionally the query of whether or not Twitter will truly observe by means of with the plan by Dorsey—who left the corporate final yr—to pursue decentralization. Thanks to Elon Musk’s on-again-off-again takeover bid, Twitter administration is in much more turmoil that common, and it’s unclear that whoever takes the reins subsequent will share Dorsey’s imaginative and prescient. But even amid the chaos, it appears like Twitter and Bluesky are nearer to redefining social media than Mark Zuckerberg is together with his tightly managed Metaverse—one which even his personal executives have described as “sad” and “empty.”
Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts
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