The movement towards a more interoperable and connected “fediverse” has reached an important milestone with the launch of Bridgy Fed. Bridgy Fed is a social networking bridge that allows users on decentralized apps like Mastodon and Bluesky to easily interact with each other. This development opens up new possibilities for communication and collaboration across different decentralized social media networks.
Decentralized social media platforms have gained significant traction in recent years, particularly in the wake of Twitter’s sale to Elon Musk and its subsequent rebranding as X. Users have been intrigued by the concept of a network that operates without a centralized authority. Mastodon, in particular, saw a surge in popularity as users flocked to these platforms to explore the possibilities of decentralized social networking. Bluesky, a startup that originated within Twitter, also saw significant growth and now boasts over 5.7 million users.
However, one major hurdle for decentralized social media networks has been their inability to communicate with each other. While Mastodon users could interact with others on the fediverse, they were unable to connect with Bluesky users due to the different underlying protocols used by these platforms. This lack of interoperability has limited the reach and potential impact of decentralized social media networks compared to their centralized counterparts like X and Meta’s Threads.
Bridgy Fed aims to address this issue by providing a bridge between different decentralized social media networks. Developed by software developer Ryan Barrett, Bridgy Fed allows users on Mastodon and Bluesky to follow, like, reply to, and repost content from each other’s networks. This two-way interaction opens up new opportunities for collaboration and conversation among users of different platforms.
Using Bridgy Fed is simple. Users on the fediverse can bridge their accounts to Bluesky by following the Mastodon account @[email protected]. The account will follow them back, creating a bridged account accessible to Bluesky users. Similarly, Bluesky users can bridge their accounts to the fediverse by following the @ap.brid.gy account on Bluesky. This creates a bridged version of their Bluesky account on the fediverse.
Bridgy Fed is currently in the early beta testing stage, so users may encounter issues and bugs. However, Barrett has plans to further improve the bridge and make it more discoverable. He intends to implement a prompt that asks users to opt in when they are being followed by someone who hasn’t yet bridged their account. This feature will become possible with the upcoming OAuth support from Bluesky.
The bridging of decentralized social media networks opens up new possibilities for content creators and users. It allows users to mirror their feed on different platforms, reaching a wider audience and engaging with people on different social networks. This broader reach and connectivity could help decentralized social media networks gain more traction and compete with centralized platforms.
In addition to Bridgy Fed, there are other efforts to bridge different networks in the fediverse, such as Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub, and SkyBridge. However, Bridgy Fed stands out as being more fully bidirectional compared to these alternatives.
Looking ahead, Bridgy Fed plans to incorporate support for Nostr, a decentralized social service favored by Jack Dorsey, co-founder, and former CEO of Twitter. With the continuous development of bridges and interoperability tools like Bridgy Fed, the fediverse is steadily becoming a more connected and cohesive network, empowering users to interact across different decentralized social media platforms.
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