Especially recently, you might've seen some discourse going around regarding other, "bluesky-based" services, or just anything you can log in to using Bluesky.
And today, I've made it my task to demistify that for the average person (or critter :3), because the base concept is actually not that hard, but the potential is HUGE
Let's get started ;3
A brief explanation on how Bluesky works
Generally, bluesky has 3 parts that you'll need to vaguely understand:
- The App (bsky.app)
- A Custom Feed (optional :P)
- The Wider Network (the relay)
- Your Data (the PDS)
From bottom to top, this is (roughly) how Bluesky is built, but if ya want more info you can refer to Wikipedia or my last blogpost
When you log into BlueSky, or create a new account, you're actually only interacting with two parts of this whole thing: The App, and Your Data - AKA the PDS.
You do the usual sign up dance, give it an email, a password, confirm said email, yada yada... and now you have a place on a PDS hosted by BlueSky!
BlueSky will put every post, every interaction, your profile information and who you follow into your own little place on the PDS, officially called a "User Repository".
But...BlueSky is not the only app that can put their data here 👀
How other apps integrate with your existing data
So, let's say you want to write a blogpost with your existing BlueSky account. You go to WhiteWind (the website you are on right now!) and log in as per usual. You write your post, hit save, make it public and...what now? Where did the post actually go?
To answer that, it's useful to take a quick, real-life peek at the data:
alexia.bsky.cyrneko.eu:
Collections:
app.bsky.actor.profile
app.bsky.feed.like
app.bsky.feed.post
app.bsky.graph.follow
app.bsky.graph.listblock
com.whtwnd.blog.entry
Hey, look at that, sounds like com.whtwnd.blog.entry might be it!
And if we look inside...
$type:
"com.whtwnd.blog.entry"
theme:
"github-light"
title:
"Bluesky, and what Bluesky is not."
content:
....
Sure enough, that's my last blogpost! All in the same place as my Bluesky data
Uh, what?
If visualizing this by text isn't your thing, you probably didn't understand anything I just said...so let me visualize it for you!
A lot simpler visually, isn't it?
Both BlueSky and WhiteWind write to the same place, but either can still exist invididually!
Of course, right now the only service that lets you sign up as a new user, with new data, is BlueSky...so really the fact that the data is kept seperately from BlueSky as a product, and can even be written into by others
Though, in terms of what can be done with how BlueSky stores data, this gives us a lot of possibility to built on-top of it!
For example, if you want an ATproto/BlueSky-Based alternative to Linktree, there is LinkAt, or if you want a link aggregator like HackerNews, there is Frontpage.fyi!
Both of these store the data in the same place as BlueSky does, just under it's own "Namespace". The "Namespace" effectively being that weird naming scheme app.bsky.* or com.whtwnd.blog.*
This also means that data from the two will never clash! Your long blogposts can co-exist with your short shitposts on the skyline, without one showing up in place of another
What exists out there for me to use apart from BlueSky, even?
Good question, I don't think I've seen an up-to-date list, but these may be interesting to you!
All of these, obviously, build on BlueSky's tech (ATproto primarily) and allow you to log in with your existing account :P
- LinkAt.blue (linktree-like)
- SmokeSignal Events
- Frontpage.fyi (link aggregator like HN
- WhiteWind (long posts!)
If ya know any more, feel free to ping me @cyrneko.eu :P
To recap...
As a little recap, keep these in mind:
- BlueSky is just one of many apps that put data into your PDS
- Other apps (that you allow) can put their own data there too, like blog posts!
- These different types of data won't conflict, because they have their own "Namespaces", kind of like categories of data!
thanks for reading! if ya enjoyed:
