Consumer demand for the Jack Dorsey-powered Twitter alternative Bluesky is outpacing reach, according to the latest App Store data and numbers the company released today. In a new FAQ on the Bluesky website, the company shares that its community has surpassed 50,000 users. However, estimates provided to TechCrunch by app intelligence firm .ai data indicate that the decentralized Twitter clone has seen more than 375,000 installs worldwide on iOS as of April 26, 2023, and has ranked high in the top charts of Apple’s app stores. and Google through downloads.
Bluesky has also grown excited in recent weeks, thanks to a combination of exclusivity — the app still requires a hard-to-find invitation to enter — and the culture its community is creating. The latter has seen the app embrace what has been described as an “early Twitter” energy, thanks in part to its many meme and shitposting accounts. This results in the kind of frantic, chaotic, and energetic atmosphere to Bluesky that attracts many ex-Twitter users especially those who didn’t fit in well with the more serious and structured environment that exists in last A decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon.
But right now, Bluesky isn’t capitalizing on huge consumer demand for its app.
While other potential alternatives to Twitter like Post and T2 have expanded their network reach, Bluesky has become calling such a hot commodity that they’ve been selling for anywhere from $120 to $400 on eBay in recent days.
Image credits: eBay screenshot
Image credits: eBay screenshot
Some sellers are now testing the market for higher prices, with Bluesky in high demand.
(Above: sold invitations. Below: Bluesky invite on sale as of May 2, 2023).
Image credits: eBay screenshot
And data.ai analysis indicates that consumer interest in the app has also driven it up the charts in app stores.
The company found that Bluesky has gained more than 375,000 iOS downloads globally, after peaking on April 15 with 66,000 downloads in a single day thanks to being the number one app across all categories in Thailand. Prior to this, the highest level of daily iOS downloads was over 22,000 on March 22, 2023.
That number of 375,000 is up from 240,000 Bluesky iOS installs as of April 20, and 135,000 of those came in that month alone, data.ai reported recently.
The app launched on Google Play in late April, so there is still no insight into how it will affect Android devices.
But the analysis suggests that even though consumers didn’t have access to the new social network, Bluesky was able to trend up the download charts across both the Apple App Store and Google Play in many markets.
In Japan, for example, Bluesky reached No. 3 among social apps on Google Play by downloads on April 24 after previously reaching No. 8 among social apps on iOS on March 4.
In the United Kingdom, the app was the tenth most social app by Google Play downloads on April 26, shortly after reaching the tenth most social app by iOS downloads on April 23.
Meanwhile, the United States has been responsible for much of Bluesky’s recent growth, the company said. This helped the app reach No. 22 among social apps with Google Play downloads on April 26 and up to No. 11 among social apps with iOS downloads on April 24.
Because of its relative newness, data.ai said it is not yet able to accurately predict the number of active users per day or per month at this time.
The ranking is impressive not only because the app is still fresh, but because its community is still quite young.
As of a few days ago, Bluesky accounts that aim to follow all users of the app were following north of 45,000 people. However, according to a FAQ Bluesky posted today, the company says the community now has 50,000 users.
The FAQ also attempts to explain how access to invitation codes is distributed, noting that existing users only receive one invitation every two weeks on the app. In addition, the company shared that it monitors the social graph periodically, and if it finds that some users invite “other trustworthy participants,” they will receive more invites.
This aspect of the invitation system makes Bluesky feel more exclusive than if it were slowly rolling out access to its waiting list. Instead, getting in now feels like a job for those you know. This has led to existing Bluesky users being asked daily – often by several people – if they have any invite codes to spare. (In other words, your best bet for getting a Bluesky invite is to become the current user’s best friend within the next couple of weeks!)
Bluesky says it’s limiting access to grow the network “organically,” but if that’s the case, throw in a few more tokens or increase the frequency in order to capitalize on real-world demand, because that would still be considered organic growth. At this point, limiting invites to 1 every 2 weeks is artificially slowing the growth of the app.
This appears to be by design. The company explains its thinking in an FAQ, saying it needs to limit bad actors upfront.
“Social networks can be abused by spammers and bad actors who may want to manipulate public conversations. It is much easier to restrict subscriptions and let them spread through the existing social graph than to try to retroactively eliminate rampant network abuse.” “Longer term, we view this invitation code system as part of the open source tools that we’re building to help server administrators (the people who run services) to help organize and moderate their communities,” she says.
It’s not clear if the company believes its existing user base can’t be trusted to deliver invitations responsibly, or if it wants to have a bigger hand in who gets in — and who stays. But with Bluesky now up for sale to the highest bidder on eBay, the company’s plans to keep bad actors out could be disrupted.
The FAQ details other aspects of Bluesky’s plans, including its decentralized AT protocol, and its advantages over Twitter, such as algorithmic selection and configurable moderation.
It also attempts to explain the nature of Bluesky’s relationship with Twitter, as it was originally incubated on Twitter while Jack Dorsey was CEO. That was later weave it out An independent company (PBLLC), its He received 13 million dollars from Twitter to begin its launch. Now, the FAQ states that “Twitter closed its service agreement with Bluesky in 2022.” Jack Dorsey remains on Bluesky’s board of directors.
Bluesky was asked to comment on the new numbers, but the automated response to press inquiries only directed us to the new FAQ.