An exciting milestone has been reached in the quest for a more interconnected “fediverse” – the decentralized network of social media applications, including Mastodon and Bluesky. Users on these platforms can now effortlessly follow and interact with individuals on other networks, such as Mastodon powered by ActivityPub or Bluesky’s AT Protocol.
This achievement is due in part to the development of Bridgy Fed, a technology aimed at bridging the gap between the fediverse and the web, Bluesky, and potentially other platforms like Nostr.
With the surge of interest in decentralized social media following Elon Musk’s purchase and rebranding of Twitter, apps like Mastodon gained traction as users explored the possibilities of a network without a centralized authority. Bluesky, a startup originally incubated within Twitter, also experienced a growth in their user base after publicly launching earlier this year and now boasts over 5.7 million users.
Other decentralized networks are also making strides, such as the blockchain-based Farcaster which recently secured $150 million in funding from Paradigm, a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, and others.
However, one major obstacle for these networks to overcome is the inability for their users to communicate with one another.
Both Mastodon and Bluesky are decentralized networks, but they operate on different protocols, meaning users on Mastodon can interact with those on other platforms using the ActivityPub protocol, but could not communicate with those on Bluesky’s AT Protocol.
Software developer Ryan Barrett sought to solve this issue with Bridgy Fed – a social networking bridge connecting users from the fediverse and Bluesky.
The matter was originally met with controversy due to the bridge’s planned opt-out nature, but Barrett responded to community feedback and made the bridge opt-in for both sides for now.
Barrett notes the possibility of making Bluesky users opt-out in the future, stating, “The norms and expectations there are somewhat different than in the fediverse.”
Bridgy Fed soft-launched in mid-April and transitioned to a full launch in the past month, joining multiple other efforts in bridging networks, including Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub, and SkyBridge. However, Bridgy Fed is one of the few fully bi-directional options available.
How to use Bridgy Fed
Using Bridgy Fed is simple and only works with public accounts and posts.
To bridge your fediverse account to Bluesky, follow the Mastodon account @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy. It will then follow you back and provide you with a new bridged account under your fediverse handle (where the second “@” is replaced with a dot) followed by “ap.brid.gy.” For example, if your Mastodon handle is @sarahp@mastodon.social, your bridged account will be @sarahp.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy.
To bridge your Bluesky account to the fediverse, follow the @ap.brid.gy account on Bluesky. Your bridged account will then be labeled as an “automated” account on Mastodon and can be found under @[handle]@bsky.brid.gy. For example, if your Bluesky handle is @sarahp@bsky.social, your bridged account will be @sarahp.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy.
Any interactions from your Bluesky account with fediverse users, such as replies, @-mentions, likes, and reports, will be bridged, along with your own Bluesky posts if you have fediverse followers. The same applies to interactions from the fediverse to Bluesky.
This differs from cross-posting as it creates a mirror of your feed on another platform. This can expand your reach and allow you to engage with a wider audience on a different social network.
Please note that the fediverse-to-Bluesky bridge and vice versa are still in beta testing, so there may be some issues, bugs, and downtime.
Going forward, Barrett plans to implement a prompt for making Bridgy Fed more discoverable by sending a DM to potential bridged users to opt-in. The bridge currently supports fediverse servers such as Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, PeerTube, Hubzilla, and others, as well as Bluesky and your own website. Bridgy Fed also plans to incorporate Nostr support in the future, a decentralized social service favored by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.
