Bluesky officially launched a custom vertical video feed on Sunday, positioning itself to capture users as the future of TikTok remains uncertain in the United States.
A New Way to Scroll on Bluesky
The platform’s mobile app has integrated a trending videos section directly into the Explore tab. Much like established short-form video platforms, users can now swipe vertically to navigate through content. This new feed offers full customization: users can pin it to their home screen for quick access or simply add it to their existing list of curated feeds.
“We had to get in on the video action, too — Bluesky now has custom feeds for video! Like any other feed, you can choose to pin these or not. Bluesky is yours to customize,” the company said in a post.
Decentralized Innovation and Market Growth
Beyond its own implementation, Bluesky is actively supporting the developer ecosystem building on the AT Protocol, the decentralized foundation of the platform. The company highlighted several third-party projects creating TikTok alternatives, including Tik.Blue, Skylight.Social, and Bluescreen.Blue. These independent apps leveraging the AT Protocol are currently in the early stages of development and are running closed testing programs.
This feature rollout coincides with a significant milestone for the platform, as Bluesky surpassed 28 million users over the weekend. The growth is fueled in part by ongoing regulatory uncertainty surrounding ByteDance-owned applications, including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and Marvel Snap.
The Battle for Short-Form Video Dominance
Bluesky is not the only platform capitalizing on the current shift in social media preferences. Major competitors are aggressively updating their interfaces to retain and attract users. Elon Musk’s X recently debuted a dedicated vertical video feed for U.S. users, while Meta has signaled its intent to challenge ByteDance’s dominance by announcing a new video editing tool called Edits, designed to compete directly with CapCut.
