Twitter's Decentralized Social Network Project Takes a Baby Step Forward

Bluesky, Twitter's decentralized social networking effort, has announced its first major update since 2019. The Verge reports: The Bluesky team released a review of the decentralized web ecosystem and said it's hoping to find a team lead in the coming months. The review follows Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey discussing Bluesky earlier this month, when he called it a 'standard for the public conversation layer of the internet.' The review outlines a variety of known decentralized systems. It includes ActivityPub, known for powering the social network Mastodon; the messaging standard XMPP, which powers WhatsApp and the now-defunct Google Talk; and Solid, a decentralization project led by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The report covers how these systems handle key social network elements like discoverability, moderation, and privacy, as well as how services based on them can scale up, interoperate, and make money.

This doesn't tell us how Bluesky itself might operate. If it results in a protocol, that system might be created from scratch, or it might build on an existing standard like ActivityPub â' a possibility Dorsey mentioned in 2019 upon unveiling the initiative. However, the report offers a snapshot of who's been working on Bluesky. It was authored by Jay Graber, creator of event-organizing platform Happening. Other contributors include Mastodon developer Eugen Rochko, peer-to-peer Beaker Browser co-creator Paul Frazee, ActivityPub standard co-editor Christopher Lemmer Webber, and InterPlanetary File System project lead Molly Mackinlay.

It also hints at the fact that decentralization often isn't profitable. The report focuses on monetization options like membership fees and cryptocurrency microtransactions, but it also notes that 'many decentralized projects run on volunteer work and donations' -- something that isn't ideal for a platform supporting commercial networks like Twitter.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.