In case you are one of many tens of millions who joined Bluesky in latest months, it is seemingly you are turned off by institution social media platforms. You most likely do not look after websites with predatory knowledge privateness insurance policies, or those who placate to incoming presidential administrations with a disdain for the reality. Perhaps you take pleasure in an internet house the place folks can share ideas, content material, and jokes in a approach that does not express search to anger or damage anybody for revenue.
After all, Bluesky has you lined there, a minimum of as a substitute for X. However when you take pleasure in sharing images and movies with the broader web, you are seemingly nonetheless tied to Instagram—prefer it or not. There are different choices on the market, like Pixelfed, a decentralized picture sharing platform that now has an official app. However when you’re all-in on Bluesky, it would be nice when you may harness the identical expertise with the group you’ve got began to construct there.
That is why Flashes is likely one of the extra attention-grabbing social media ideas I’ve seen not too long ago. The app, developed by Sebastian Vogelsang, is predicated off of his earlier app Skeets, a subscription-optional Bluesky consumer with a emphasis on accessibility, amongst different options (if you need to have the ability to edit your posts, for instance, Skeets makes use of a nifty workaround to do it). However for Flashses, Vogelsang’s focus was to make an Instagram-like expertise for images and movies shared on Bluesky.
Credit score: Sebastian Vogelsang
That is the factor: Flashes is not actually an Instagram competitor. There isn’t a Flashes platform, you will not join a Flashes account, and you will not publish images or movies to a devoted Flashes feed. As a substitute, the app is a “picture viewing consumer” for Bluesky. It primarily pulls all the images and movies out of your Bluesky feed and shows them in a UI harking back to Instagram. You may publish images and movies through Flashes, however you are actually simply posting them on Bluesky. Any posts to Flashes, in addition to any feedback on these posts, will seem in your Bluesky account as properly.
In case you’re intrigued, sadly you may have to attend a bit earlier than you may attempt it: The official Flashes App Bluesky account solely began posting right this moment, and Vogelsang anticipates beginning an open Testflight Beta subsequent week for iOS customers. However as soon as the app formally launches, you’ll use it publish 4 images or movies at a time. (Movies will be as much as one minute every.)
In keeping with TechCrunch, Vogelsand additionally plans to launch a video-only model of Flashes, known as Blue Display screen. Maybe that will probably be a sound TikTok different for actually passionate Bluesky customers.
The information of Flashes comes at an unsure time for legacy social media. Customers have flown from X to alternate options like Bluesky; the US authorities is on the verge of banning TikTok, prompting customers to flee to different Chinese language apps in protest; and Meta is repelling lots of its customers with its weird and irritating selections. We appear to be at an inflection level, and individuals are on the lookout for new, different platforms. In case you’ve already built-up your Bluesky follows, I do not see a greater picture sharing answer than one which merely works with the app you are already so invested in.
