• by Colin Kirkland , November 15, 2024

Bluesky added over 1 million new users in the past 24 hours, marking yet another major boost in users for the budding social-media company as it continues to compete with X and Threads in the microblogging app space.

The platform’s previous user lifts have occurred in reaction to X, the app formerly known as Twitter, and the actions of X-owner Elon Musk.

In September, Bluesky received 2 million new users and record-high engagement after X was fully banned in Brazil, after it failed to comply with the Brazilian Supreme Court's orders to name a legal representative and suppress specific accounts spreading misinformation about the country’s most recent presidential election.

Bluesky then onboarded about 500k new users directly after X announced that it was moving closer to removing the “block” functionality on its app, which would disallow users to hide their profile from certain X accounts. 

Furthermore, Bluesky says over a million new people signed up on the platform in the week following the recent U.S. presidential election, highlighting the prominent support Musk has shown for divisive figure and president-elect Donald Trump.

The most recent addition of 1 million users is likely an ongoing response to the election and the publicity it has received from a wide range of public figures like Lizzo, Barbara Streisand, Quinta Brunson, Tim Heidecker Weird Al Yankovic, Dionne Warwick, Colson Whitehead, Mark Cuban, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and more have embraced Bluesky over X. 

In addition to its user boost, the social app currently holds a spot at the top of the free apps chart on the App Store in the U.S., with Threads trailing behind.

“We also have a higher percentage of posters than most social sites, which follow a 90-9-1 pattern of lurkers-commenters-posters,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber in a separate post. “We haven’t dipped below ~30% posters.”

Still, Bluesky, which has just over 16 million users overall, is relatively smaller in comparison to Threads and X, which have 275 million and 600 million active users, respectively.