Flashes is a New Photo Sharing App Powered by Bluesky

A new photo sharing app called Flashes is about to be rolled out and it is closely linked with the Twitter alternative Bluesky.

Flashes will allow users to share up to four photos per post and will also support one-minute-long videos. TechCrunch reports that the app is powered by the same technology that supports Bluesky.

The independent developer behind Flashes, Berlin-based Sebastian Vogelsang, tells TechCrunch that he sees an opportunity to build apps catering to Bluesky users after its popularity began surging when Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X.

“I thought about the idea of having one base social graph and then having just different apps pick from that graph whatever they want to display,” Vogelsang says. “I found it very intriguing, because before we had these separated networks.”

Vogelsang says Flashes could be an entry point into Bluesky for people who “never saw themselves as a Twitter person.”

Flashes posts will appear in Bluesky and it will also support Bluesky direct messaging. An open testflight beta will begin next week, Vogelsang reveals on Bluesky.

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky started as an idea from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey who said he hoped to build a “decentralized” social network. While Bluesky was initially developed inside Twitter, it became an independent company in 2022 and is now primarily owned by CEO Jay Graber.

Bluesky launched as an invite-only beta app in early 2023, before opening its gates to everyone in February 2024. By then, the platform had attracted over three million users.

Bluesky is a decentralized social media app that has a similar look and feel to X. The platform also recently added features including direct messaging and video compatibility to more closely resemble X and distinguish itself from Threads.

The app itself functions much like X, where a user can click a plus button to create a post of 256 characters, which can also include photos. Posts themselves can be replied to, retweeted, liked and from a three-dot menu, reported, shared via the iOS Share Sheet to other apps, or copied as text.

However, rather than having one “master algorithm,” Bluesky allows for a more personalized experience. By default, there are three main feeds: One shows accounts a user follows, another shows what their friends follow and a “discover” feed surfaces posts linked to their interests.

Bluesky allows users to reach beyond these three by developing their own customized algorithm for content such as cats, or only posts about photography. Because of this customization, Graber tells NPR there are more than 50,000 different Bluesky feeds available.

Shifting Social Media Landscape

As well as Musk’s takeover of Twitter driving users to alternative platforms like Bluesky, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recently announced the company is removing fact checkers from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to “reduce censorship” on the platforms — in a move that was widely seen as a pivot toward the incoming Donald Trump administration and scaring some Meta users away.

Earlier this week, PetaPixel reported on Instagram alternative Pixelfed: a decentralized, ad-free, and open-source platform, which aims to offer “a fresh take on photo sharing.” Pixelfed has been surging in popularity and also made the news when Meta labeled links to Pixelfed.social as “spam” and has been deleting them.

Then there is TikTok which is expected to be banned on Sunday and American users, fearing the worst, have begun moving over to another Chinese app called RedNote.