Bluesky will soon add DMs and videos

Decentralized social media platform Bluesky has already racked up some big accomplishments. It’s a rare example of a Twitter / X-competitor that has found success. Most other competitors, aside from the Meta-backed Threads, have since-closed up shop. In addition, Bluesky was able to rack up more than 3 million sign-ups during a period where users could only join the platform via invite. Since opening up to all, Bluesky has amassed more than 5.6 million users.

And, Bluesky has been able to do all of this without two major features found on most big social media platforms: direct messages (DMs) and video uploads. But, that won’t be the case for long.

In a post published on Tuesday, the Bluesky team shared its upcoming plans for the platform and those plans include DMs and video.

DMs, video, and more are on the way

According to Bluesky, the team is planning to add a slew of new features in the coming months.

DMs, or private messages, appear first on Bluesky’s list of things-to-do. As Bluesky points out, all posts on the platform have been public so far. That will change soon as the team works on “a DM service that will integrate into the Bluesky app.” Bluesky says the first version of the DM feature will allow users to restrict who they can receive messages from. Users will be able to allow DMs only from users that they follow, disable DMs entirely, or have open DMs, meaning anyone can private message them on the platform.

Probably the most notable feature gap on Bluesky is the lack of video uploads. That will soon change too. Bluesky says upon release, this feature will allow users to upload video clips up to 90 seconds long.

While those are the biggest on Bluesky’s list, there are other features on the way too. Bluesky says it’s working on its own OAuth or “Log in with” feature. Once that’s in place, third-party websites and platforms will be able to give users the option to sign-up using their Bluesky accounts.

In addition, Bluesky is looking to further build out features that are unique to its platform too. Bluesky has one of the more robust anti-harassment features and it’s looking to improve those moderation tools.

Another unique Bluesky feature, Custom Feeds, which allows users to completely customize their timeline, will be getting a bunch of new updates. Bluesky says there will be the ability to submit particular posts to feeds and curate submissions, requests to the algorithm to “show more” or “show less” of a particular type of content, and the ability to “drive superfeeds” that will show what’s happening in your following feeds’ communities.

In all, it appears like there are a lot of new things coming to Bluesky. During a week where Twitter founder Jack Dorsey left its board of directors, these new features will surely be welcome additions among the Bluesky community.