TikTok is back up and running in the United States, but uncertainty about its future has opened up new opportunities for platforms like Bluesky, X and other social networks. In recent days, these services have introduced new features, including dedicated video tabs and feeds, making it easier to discover and watch vertical content within their apps. Yesterday, Instagram announced a new tool that competes with CapCut, the video editor from ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. The announcement came shortly after TikTok suffered an outage in the United States.
Bluesky has also decided to enter the video sector, launching customizable feeds for this type of content. Users can swipe vertically to navigate videos and create thematic feeds based on specific hashtags, such as the #BookSky feed, inspired by TikTok’s “BookTok” literary community. “As with any other feed, users can choose whether to pin it or not,” the platform explained in a post. Additionally, the update introduced a new video section in the search tab, which shows a history of the most popular content on the platform. As announced by Bluesky, the ability to exclusively browse a video feed is a feature reserved for custom feeds.
Bluesky also thanked the developers of the AT Protocol, the decentralized system on which the platform is based, used to create alternatives to TikTok such as Tik.Blue, Skylight.Social and Bluescreen.Blue, which are currently in development. Meanwhile, X has started releasing a new “Video Tab” in the US, accessible via a play button icon located in the app’s bottom navigation bar. “Through this section, users can explore a personalized feed with recommended videos, which reflect the real-time nature of X, spanning sports, entertainment, news and more,” Elon Musk’s social network said in its announcement.