The Bluesky and Mastodon social networks could soon be accessible via a single app – at least Bluesky hopes so. The new decentralized social network, originally founded within the Jack Dorsey-led Twitter, is backing a project that aims to connect – or “bridge” – Mastodon requests with Bluesky requests so that consumer apps like Ivory are also compatible with Bluesky.
The project, called SkyBridge, was among the recipients of a small grant of $4,800 from Bluesky, which was distributed across several projects. SkyBridge was the second largest recipient in this current cohort at $800.
Bluesky announced last month that it would use some of its funding to advance efforts in the developer ecosystem through the AT Protocol Grant program. From a financial perspective, the program is relatively insignificant, as it only awards $10,000 in grants and has already distributed $4,800. This isn’t enough to start a new company in this space, but it is a way to encourage developers who have already wanted to get started with the new AT protocol. It also serves as an early signal of the type of development work Bluesky supports – something that could help drive adoption among developers who have previously (and repeatedly) been intrigued by Twitter and its changing priorities.
Other program recipients also do valuable work.
Blacksky Algorithms, for example, is building a suite of services to provide tailored moderation services for Bluesky’s Black users. Others develop Bluesky consumer applications, developer tools, analytics resources, and more.
But SkyBridge is particularly interesting because it could potentially bring the small startup to a wider audience.
Unlike Mastodon and other decentralized apps based on the older ActivityPub protocol, Bluesky is developing a new, decentralized social networking protocol. Unfortunately for end users who have begun exploring the open source social networks commonly known as “Fediverse,” Bluesky’s decision to build on a different protocol means users will have to switch apps to access the network from Bluesky. This means they can’t use their favorite Mastodon app to browse Bluesky content.
If successful, SkyBridge could change this as it could translate Mastodon API calls into Bluesky API calls. The bridge is currently being tested on Ivory on iOS and Mac; It is the Mastodon app from the company that previously developed a popular third-party Twitter app called Tweetbot. SkyBridge developer @videah.net notes on Bluesky that the project is currently undergoing a major rewrite from Dart to Rust, so its GitHub repo hasn’t seen much activity recently.
Nevertheless, he considers the work to be promising.
“It’s already proving to be much more stable, I hope to show it soon,” videah posted on Bluesky when sharing the news of the funding.
Today, Bluesky has almost 5.6 million users, while the broader ActivityPub-powered Fediverse has over 10 million users. Instagram Threads (which will be integrated into ActivityPub) now has more than 150 million monthly active users, Meta announced during results this week.
The move to combine Bluesky and Mastodon has been the subject of some debate recently. People disagreed about how a bridge should be bridged or whether a bridge should be built at all. Another software developer, Ryan Barrett, was heavily criticized on GitHub when he built another bridge called Bridgy Fed that was disabled by default – meaning Mastodon posts would show up on Bluesky even if the post author hadn’t enabled it . He changed his plans and instead built in a discoverable opt-in that would allow users to track accounts across the various networks.
With the support of SkyBridge, Bluesky signals a desire to blur the lines between Mastodon and Bluesky.
Ultimately, people may no longer need to think about what protocol an app is running, just as no one thinks about whether their email client uses SMTP, POP3, or IMAP. And ideally, people would be able to connect with friends on any social network, regardless of background, and in turn see their friends’ replies.