Bluesky, the platform led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, appears in the App Store as an invite-only app

The App Store recently made Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, available to more testers. Even though the app is still in beta and invite-only, its appearance on the App Store suggests it may soon be available to the public, TechCrunch reported.

There hasn’t been much news about Bluesky since October 2022. During this time, the team responsible for the project shared an update on the Bluesky blog that discussed the state of the community protocol underlying the new app, called Bluesky.

Project Bluesky, now a public benefit company, was first developed within Twitter in 2019 when Jack Dorsey was CEO. Twitter has also provided financial support for several years. Although the project was initiated before the company was acquired by current owner Elon Musk, the two executives recently discussed the concept of an open source protocol via text message before Musk bought Twitter.

The Bluesky app is now available to the public and some users have been invited to test it. Data.ai, an application intelligence company, reported that the Bluesky iOS app was launched on February 17, 2023 and has been downloaded by more than 2,000 users. Since this is still in the invite phase, this will probably only include the recently added beta testers. Currently, the app is not on any charts in the US and is not yet available on Google Play.

Does Twitter support Bluesky?

During a text exchange, Dorsey explained to Musk that a new platform was needed and could not be a company, which is why he left Twitter. After stepping down as CEO, Dorsey publicly discussed Bluesky on Twitter as an open decentralized standard for social media around the time Twitter banned President Trump from its platform. Dorsey believed that Bluesky would reduce the power of centralized platforms like Twitter to decide which users and communities can engage in discourse and moderate content.

With Musk now running Twitter, it’s unclear how the two projects can stay connected. Bluesky stated that it received US$13 million to conduct R&D, and that Jack Dorsey is also a member of the board of directors. Bluesky’s funding from Twitter had only one condition: research and development of technologies that enable open and decentralized public conversation.

But Twitter has been cutting costs significantly, including layoffs, auctions, office closings and unpaid bills, so it would be surprising if a project like Bluesky remained a priority.