Bluesky is getting its own Instagram alternative called Flashs

There’s a lot of change in the world of social media as TikTok prepares to go out of business, Mark Zuckerberg eases content restrictions on Meta apps, and Elon Musk continues to manipulate the X algorithm to suit his personal preferences.

Fortunately, despite the fickle nature of most of the app’s users, Bluesky seems to have managed to break through and become a really promising alternative. Thanks to the fundamentally open nature of its protocol, anyone can create their own applications that build on Bluesky’s social graph.

Case in point, a developer named Sebastian Vogelsang is building an app that will essentially be a new version of Instagram plus Bluesky’s AT protocol. Because it uses Bluesky’s social graph, posts are added to… Flashes They will also appear on the main Bluesky client, and vice versa – images published on Bluesky will appear on Flashes. The app only filters text posts and only shows posts that contain photos or videos. Through the app, users can share photo slideshows with up to four photos, or one-minute video clips.

Vogelsang says Flashes is not intended to be a full version of Instagram and will not receive many of the features that Instagram has. This makes sense, because the app is just a redesign of the Bluesky app. Many people have lamented that they long for the days when Instagram was simple, and wasn’t filled with AI-generated content or weird recommendations. Flashes will likely help fill this gap.

Bluesky got a big boost from Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, and then Twitter, despite its growth It has slowed in recent months. It is estimated that Bluesky has approximately 27 million active users. That’s nowhere near the size of apps like Instagram and TikTok, and it’s still much smaller than the X as well. Reaching critical mass for any social network is extremely difficult, and X only sees its influence grow as Musk begins serving as President-elect Trump’s right-hand man.

But Bluesky has a promising future if it can continue to grow at a moderate pace. The company raised A A $15 million investment is in the back in October with plans to launch paid subscriptions so that the company does not rely on advertising or collecting user data. Most major social networks these days have plugged their own APIs and don’t allow third-party clients because it makes it difficult to serve and target ads, and the same data is used to train AI.

Vogelsang said TechCrunch Flashes should be released in the coming weeks. Anyone interested in checking this out can follow along Calculate flashes on Bluesky for updates.