Elon Musk’s X lets you write long-form content on the platform through its Articles feature, but only if you’re a paid subscriber or business. Bluesky has a different idea.
On Thursday, Bluesky rolled out a new version of its app that integrates with Standard.site, a community project for building long-form content on the same underlying protocol that powers Bluesky. This means Bluesky users can now explore content beyond microblogs — the short posts the platform is known for. Instead, they can read articles, blog posts, and newsletters published across the wider network of AT Protocol-powered apps, known as the “Atmosphere.”
That includes sites like Leaflet, pckt, and Offprint, which cater to independent writers and publishers who want to own their content and expand their distribution across the open web. These articles will initially appear as dynamic link cards — essentially, an enhanced preview. Bluesky says this is just a first step, and the functionality will be improved over time.
This marks the second expansion of Bluesky’s capabilities based on projects built by community members. In February, a startup called Germ became the first private messaging service that could launch directly from Bluesky’s app through a similar integration. By building its technology infrastructure alongside its social networking client, Bluesky is able to leverage other apps and services also running on the AT Protocol — a arrangement that benefits third parties as well, since they can tap into distribution across Bluesky’s network of some 44.5 million registered users.
The expansion to long-form content follows WordPress’s announcement earlier this month of a plug-in that allows any WordPress site to publish to the Atmosphere. Like Bluesky’s integration, it relies on Standard.site’s lexicon records, which means a blog becomes data on the AT Protocol itself rather than just a link shared on an app. Because of this, any AT Protocol-compatible app could allow its users to read WordPress blog posts.
The integration illustrates Bluesky’s broader vision for an open social web — one where data is freely distributable, accessible from any client, and where users can move between personal data servers at will. Beyond Bluesky’s own server, options now include those offered by Eurosky, Blacksky, Northsky, and others.
That stands in contrast to X’s approach, where long-form content remains siloed within its app and can only be embedded elsewhere on the web. X does, however, hold a significant distribution advantage with approximately 550 million monthly active users.
The updated Bluesky app (v1.122) also includes a refreshed GIF picker and photo viewer, expanded moderation labeling at the account level, and a fix for a bug that was silently dropping some iOS video uploads.
Source: Bluesky adds long-form content support via AT Protocol community apps