An vital step has been achieved towards a more interoperable “fediverse” – a broader network of decentralized social media applications reminiscent of Mastodon, Bluesky and others. Now users of decentralized applications like Mastodon, powered by ActivityPub, and those powered by Bluesky’s AT protocol, can easily follow people on other networks, view their posts, and like, reply, and repost them.
Those same people will have the option to see other people’s posts in return.
The technology that makes this possible is Bridge Fedone of the efforts to connect fediverse to the Bluesky network and perhaps later other networks reminiscent of Nostr.
Since Twitter was sold in 2022 to Elon Musk, who renamed the X app, interest in decentralized social media has increased. Apps like Mastodon gained a following after Twitter’s takeover, as users explored what the network might appear like without centralized authority. Meanwhile, Bluesky – a startup originally incubated at Twitter – raised a seed round and completely expanded its network 5.7 million users following its public release earlier this yr.
Other decentralized social media networks are also gaining ground of their very own, like blockchain-based Farcaster, which closed on $150 million in funding last month from Paradigm, a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV and others.
There’s just one problem these networks face as they struggle to gain traction against rivals like X and Meta’s Threads: their users can’t talk to each other.
While each Mastodon and Bluesky are decentralized social media operations, they rely on different underlying protocols. This signifies that a Mastodon user can interact with others who post elsewhere in the fediverse – that is, with other applications using the older version ActivePub social networking protocol. However, they were unable to contact individuals who posted on Bluesky because it uses a newer version AT protocol operate.
Programmer Ryan Barrett is working on solving this problem with Bridgy Fed, a social bridge that might connect Fediverse users with Bluesky users and vice versa.
Although the case was initially fraught with debate over the planned abandonment of the bridge, Barrett listened to the community and agreed to work with each side for now.
However, this will change in the future and make the opt-out option available only to Bluesky users. “The norms and expectations are a little different there than in the Fediverse,” he told TechCrunch.
The Bridgy Fed itself was launched in mid-April and went full capability starting over the last month. This is currently one of many different attempts to connect networks in the Fediverse Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub AND SkyBridgealthough many of them are not as fully bi-directional as Bridgy.
How to use Bridgy Fed
Using Bridgy Fed is quite easy. For starters, it only works with public accounts and public posts, so there is not any worry about your private or follower-only posts being replicated elsewhere.
To connect your Fediverse account to Bluesky, simply follow your Mastodon account @[email protected]. The account will follow you. You will then routinely have a latest, linked account available to Bluesky users under your fediverse/Mastodon handle (where the second @ is now a dot) followed by “ap.brid.gy”.
For example, if my Mastodon account is @[email protected] this is my bridge account @sarahp.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy.
(OK, sure, that is a lot of letters, but that is it He’s working!)
On the other hand, if you wish to connect your Bluesky account to Fediverse, follow the instructions @ap.brid.gy Bluesky account. Similarly, you’ll receive a staging version of your Bluesky account on Fediverse. In this case the format is @[handle]@bsky.brid.gy.
So if my Bluesky account is @[email protected], this is my bridge account @[email protected]. It may also be marked as an “automatic” account on Mastodon, so people will know it is a staging account.
Everything in your Bluesky account that interacts with Fediverse users might be linked, including replies, @-mentions, likes, reports and, if you have Fediverse followers, your personal Bluesky posts. The same applies to the opposite situation.
This is different from uploading posts, where you post once using software that then posts to all of your connected accounts. Instead, it’s more like mirroring your channel to one other platform. This can allow you to reach more people because you’ll have the option to connect with people on one other social network.
The Fediverse-Bluesky Bridge (and vice versa) is still in early beta testing, so you will likely encounter issues, bugs, downtime, and other issues.
Barrett says he has more plans ahead for Bridgy Fed, including introducing a discovery tooltip. “When you try to follow someone who has not yet been connected to a bridge, we will send a private message to that person asking for their consent. I look forward to Bluesky’s upcoming OAuth support,” he notes.
The bridge currently works with Fediverse servers reminiscent of Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, PeerTube, Hubzilla and others, in addition to Bluesky and your personal website. I plan to turn it on later Our support also for its bridge, the decentralized social service currently favored by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.