Bluesky launches group chats, as company shifts focus to community features
Bluesky launches group chats, as company shifts focus to community features
Bluesky 推出群聊功能，公司战略重心转向社区化
Social network Bluesky launched support for group chats on Thursday, another feature designed to make the app more competitive with its larger competitor, X. While Elon Musk-owned X recently doubled down on chats with the launch of a stand-alone XChat app, Bluesky is only now catching up by offering a way for groups to interact more privately on its platform. 社交网络 Bluesky 于周四推出了群聊功能，这是该应用旨在提升其与竞争对手 X 竞争力的又一举措。尽管埃隆·马斯克旗下的 X 最近通过推出独立的 XChat 应用加大了对聊天功能的投入，但 Bluesky 如今才刚刚跟进，为用户提供了一种在平台上进行更私密互动的方式。
The feature, which is arriving in the latest version of the social app (v1.124), is one of the first to deliver on Bluesky’s plan to focus more on communities, rather than trying to be a social network where people post solely to reach a wider public audience. That’s a notable shift in strategy, and one that arrives as Bluesky’s overall growth has slowed. Today, the network reaches some 44.8 million registered users, compared with X’s 600 million monthly active users. If Bluesky can’t reach the scale of competitors like X or Meta’s Threads, it may need to find new ways to make its app attractive to would-be users, including by offering different forms of social connection. 该功能随社交应用的最新版本（v1.124）一同发布，是 Bluesky 落实“社区化”战略的首批举措之一，旨在改变其作为“仅供用户向大众发布内容”的社交网络定位。这是一个显著的战略转变，而此时 Bluesky 的整体增长速度已经放缓。目前，该网络拥有约 4480 万注册用户，而 X 的月活跃用户则高达 6 亿。如果 Bluesky 无法达到 X 或 Meta 旗下 Threads 那样的规模，它可能需要寻找新的方式来吸引潜在用户，包括提供不同形式的社交连接。
The startup added support for messaging in 2024, but it only more recently began offering encrypted chats, and only by integrating the third-party messaging service Germ. Now, Bluesky is offering support for group chats of up to 50 people, its announcement states. That’s smaller than X’s support for 1,000 members, but it’s a start. And the company says it may increase this limit in the future. 这家初创公司于 2024 年增加了对私信功能的支持，但直到最近才通过集成第三方消息服务 Germ 开始提供加密聊天功能。根据公告，Bluesky 现在支持最多 50 人的群聊。虽然这比 X 支持的 1000 人规模要小，但这只是一个开始，公司表示未来可能会提高这一上限。
Group chat creators can manage their chats however they like and can decide who is allowed to participate, the company noted. They can generate an invite link that can be shared across the web, including in Bluesky posts where it’s displayed as an embedded card. Chat participants, meanwhile, can control who’s allowed to invite them to chats — everyone, only people they follow, or no one. The default setting will be “only people you follow,” unless users select a different choice for DMs. Sharing media in group chats is not yet supported, as it will require additional safety and moderation systems, Bluesky says. 公司指出，群聊创建者可以自由管理聊天内容，并决定谁有权参与。他们可以生成一个邀请链接，在网络上分享，包括在 Bluesky 的帖子中以嵌入式卡片的形式展示。与此同时，聊天参与者可以控制谁有权邀请他们加入群聊——选项包括“所有人”、“仅关注的人”或“无人”。除非用户在私信设置中另行选择，否则默认设置为“仅关注的人”。Bluesky 表示，目前群聊尚不支持媒体共享，因为这需要额外的安全和审核系统支持。
In a series of recent posts from Bluesky’s head of product, Alex Benzer spoke about how Bluesky will be working to make its app more community-focused in the days ahead. “Today, Bluesky is one big space. Communities will be smaller spaces inside that where you can go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff,” he wrote. Benzer also explained that the goal was to build more community features on the underlying protocol (AT Proto) with support from the wider developer ecosystem. “On Bluesky, you’ll be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and get updates,” Benzer added. 在最近的一系列帖子中，Bluesky 产品负责人 Alex Benzer 谈到了公司未来将如何致力于让应用更加“社区化”。他写道：“今天的 Bluesky 是一个巨大的空间。而社区将是其中的小型空间，你可以在这里进行更深入的交流，并与志同道合的人互动。”Benzer 还解释说，目标是在底层协议（AT Proto）上构建更多社区功能，并获得更广泛开发者生态系统的支持。他补充道：“在 Bluesky 上，你将能够创建社区、加入社区、在社区内发帖并获取更新。”
The timing is particularly notable given that X announced in April that it was shutting down its Communities feature because of low usage and too much spam. Bluesky, seemingly, is trying to pick up where X left off by catering to those who want more control and ownership over their online community experience. For instance, Benzer noted that communities on Bluesky will get their own handle that doubles as a URL, like community-name.bsky.social or community-name.bsky.space. They’ll also be able to be set it as either public, invite-only, or private, similar to the options available on Facebook Groups or Reddit. 考虑到 X 在四月份因使用率低和垃圾信息过多而宣布关闭其“社区”功能，这一时间点显得尤为引人注目。Bluesky 似乎正试图接手 X 放弃的领域，以满足那些希望对在线社区体验拥有更多控制权和所有权的用户。例如，Benzer 指出，Bluesky 上的社区将拥有自己的句柄（handle），同时作为 URL 使用，例如 community-name.bsky.social 或 community-name.bsky.space。它们还可以设置为公开、仅限受邀者加入或私密，类似于 Facebook 群组或 Reddit 提供的选项。
With communities, Bluesky is ultimately betting that people are looking for an exit from platforms operated by Big Tech players, and could be enticed to explore more open technologies where they feel they have more control over the experience (and won’t have their account disabled by rogue AI moderation systems!). Along with group chats, the updated version of Bluesky is also offering a new way to share profiles via a personalized QR code, similar to other social apps. 通过社区功能，Bluesky 最终押注的是：人们正在寻找逃离大型科技公司运营平台的方式，并可能被吸引去探索更开放的技术，在那里他们感到对体验有更多的控制权（且不会因为失控的 AI 审核系统而被封号！）。除了群聊，更新后的 Bluesky 还提供了一种通过个性化二维码分享个人资料的新方式，这与其他社交应用类似。