Tag: bluesky

Mark Zuckerberg says Social Media is dead (and other thoughts on social media for Dec 2025)

Last year I wrote that Bluesky is making social media fun again, and that was true. It’s still somewhat true: of the remaining platforms, Bluesky and Instagram are still getting steady use from me in 2025.

That might change in 2026 if Instagram starts floods itself with AI content, though. Already I am seeing more and more people posting terrible reels that either are explicitly AI generated or probably AI generated (I’m looking at you, cute animal videos.) Once AI video slop takes over that platform, my Instagram days will be over.

Despite my use, is it true in 2025 that social media really dead for most othe people? In a recent court trial, Mark Zuckerberg of all people says so. It was in his interest to say so in the trial, though. I still believe that the 1-9-90 rule continues to apply to social media: 1% of users create new content, 9% of users will engage with that content, and 90% just consume content. The difference now is the content people consume is not so much from their friends but from organizations and influencers.

As for where they consume it, according to Pew Research Center, most people in 2025 get their content on sites like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Those platforms are also the ones that have seen growth since 2021, according to Axios. Axios adds WhatsApp and Reddit to those sites seeing growth.

The one social media platform seeing decline since 2021 is X (Twitter).  It doesn’t help that X is the go to site for antisemitism, according to CNN. (More on that, here.) And that’s just one of many reasons for people to flee it for twitter-like sites such as Threads and Bluesky.

As for Threads and Bluesky and Truth Social, they just don’t have the juice that Twitter had in it’s heyday. Maybe Mark Z is right: maybe social media as we knew it is dead. Maybe now those social media platforms are just full of people watching TikToks and Reels and Youtube videos, when they aren’t streaming music and video. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.

P.S. For more detailed analysis, I highly recommend the Pew report I linked to.

What’s cool? These seven links are cool

Summer’s starting, and when the weather gets hot, you need something cool. These links below aren’t cool in that way, but they are cool nonetheless:

For example, this moped design by teenage engineering is definitely cool. Other cool transportation is this solar-powered chocolate factory supplied by a sailing ship.

When people first started putting things on the Web, virtual tours were very cool. Guess what? They still are. Check out this recent virtual tour of the Basilica Santa Maria.

The great Gina Trapani has built a page showing her Life in Weeks. Cool stuff. Speaking of the Web, here’s some cool stuff you can do with the web site, Bluesky

If you need a cool place to get away, how about these Postcard Cabins? Some of them are awesome. Also awesome is this clip of an Olympic gold medalist runner dominating the 100m at her kids sports day event! Any time someone says they would have a slim chance against an elite athlete, show them this.

It’s getting hot out there. Stay cool.

Bluesky is making social media fun again (and other thoughts on social media for Nov 2024)


Bluesky is making social media fun again, and that’s a good thing. For example, you have people developing creative new apps that show Bluesky skeets (posts) like the digital rain in the Matrix or firehose effect or a nightsky. All very cool.

It has some asking: is Bluesky the new Twitter and is that a good thing? Right now I would answer Yes to both parts of that question.

One thing for sure, people are paying attention and piling on. As the New York Times noted, Elon Musk and his swing to the right had much to do with people fleeing Twitter (ok, X.com).

What’s odd is that they are mostly going to Bluesky. After all, Bluesky is not the only game in town: Threads still exists. However Bluesky is rolling out features that are making Threads and X users want to move the butterfly app. And Threads has noticed and has started making changes. (While also trying to deal with their engagement bait problem.)

Will the changes at Threads be enough to keep Bluesky from surging to the lead? We will have to wait and see. Meanwhile I am interested in learning more about Bluesky and how I can experiment with it. If you feel the same, check out their documentation and read about the AT protocol.

Not everything about social media is fun and good. Over on X.com you have Elon making nazi jokes and spreading election conspiracies. Maybe he should spend less time doing that and more time on  X.com’s technical problems. I’ll leave Ed Zitron have the last word on Elon Musk (he has several words, and they are all rightly scathing). While over on visual social media, we have TikTok users spreading misinformation on melanoma. And famed YouTuber MrBeast being sued over ‘unsafe’ environment on upcoming Amazon reality show. Not good and all.

I once believed that new developments in social media were over. But the growth of Bluesky has convinced me otherwise. I’ll be curious to see how it grows over the next few years. Hopefully people like Musk and other fans of Trump (ahem, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz) stay away.
 

How to change your Bluesky handle if you have you own domain at netfirms

If you’re like me, you may have a domain name that represents you (e.g. berniemichalik.ca) and that domain name is set up with netfirms. You have decided you want that domain name to be your Bluesky handle. Great! Here is the process I followed.

First, you will want to start by following the process outlined by Bluesky here. As you are following their process, you will see a Change Handle screen like the one below. When you get there, write down or save in a file the Host information information (_atproto), Type information (TXT) and the Value information (did=…..). You will need that information when you log in to netfirms.

Once you have that information, you can do the following:

  1. Login to your netfirms account (https://secure.netfirms.com/secure/login.bml)
  2. Click on the word Domains at the top left of the screen. Look for the domain name you want to use and then click on the Manage button associated with it.
  3. Scroll down on the column on the left until you see the words     DNS & Nameservers and click on that.
  4. Look for the words DNS Records and click on that.
  5. Click on the round button with a plus sign in it to the left of the words Add DNS Record
  6. A box labelled Add New DNS Record will open. Fill in the input boxes you see.
    1. For Name, enter the host information: _atproto.
    2. For Type, it should equal TXT like it does about.
    3. For Content, enter the value information from Bluesky that started with did=…. (Make sure you enter all the information for the value.)
    4. For TTL, it should equal 1 hour.
  7. Once you fill in all this information, click the Add DNS button.

That’s all there is to it! If you follow their process successfully and make the changes in netfirms as I outlined, you will have a new Bluesky handle. Now anyone wanting to verify that your Bluesky account truly is you can check out your web site listed in your handle.