First Impressions As Track Twitter Begins Its Migration To Bluesky

By Chris Chavez

For much of the past week, you may have noticed a flurry of reporters, celebrities, and media outlets announcing their departure from X (I still call it Twitter) to join Bluesky.

If you were (perhaps regrettably) a Twitter early adopter, you likely yearn for the good ol’ days from about 2012 to 2017 when it was a place to connect with friends, get your news, and participate in friendly discourse. For a wide variety of reasons since the election, many people have taken a hard stance to deactivate and delete their X account entirely. There has been tons of discontent with Elon Musk since he bought the platform in 2022 but that only escalated when he campaigned hard for President-elect Donald Trump and was just recently named to his advisory team. Some departures are due to the new terms of service that went into effect on Nov. 15 which allows X to analyze user’s content to train AI. All of this has left people searching for alternatives.

Threads has more than 270 million active monthly users, according to the Head of Instagram and Threads overlord Adam Mosseri. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says they’re signing up more than a million people a day. Both have a ways to go to try and catch the reported 335 million active users on X. A number which appears to be decreasing. Bluesky (which has all of the same short message, photo, video and DM features of Twitter) has now gone from about 6 million users to 18 million users in the past week.

However, in the first week of this big migration from the media and its consumers, athletes have not been as quick to move over and start from zero from Twitter to Bluesky.

CITIUS MAG will continue to post on X, Bluesky and Threads.

Here are some quick thoughts on exploring the emerging alternatives for the sports media and track fan:

The Threads Experiment

I distinctly remember being at the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon when Threads launched in July 2023. I made sure to set up my account that day as users flooded in with hopes of this being the big alternative to Twitter right as it was being rebranded to X. It was super easy to set up since you were able to follow all the same people you follow on Instagram with the click of a button, and those who follow you on Instagram would be able to do the same.

As a result of the simple set-up, you’ll be able to find a good amount of celebrities, brands, creators, influencers, and athletes on Threads sharing quick text-based updates. This is how we learned Simone Biles was hungover when she posted “I’m never drinking again” after earning three gold medals and one silver medal at the Paris Olympics.

Frankly, I think the 270 million number on Threads is a bit inflated since many people probably opted to sign up for Threads because of how easy it was and because they received notifications for it via Instagram. Many creators I follow don’t actually post any text-based updates and just share the same photo posts they share to Instagram because there’s a button at the bottom of each post that can be toggled to “Share to Threads” and “Share to Facebook.”

Threads feels like it was launched early as a way to capitalize on the Muskification of Twitter but enough media reporters, creators, and influencers have stuck around as it adds and tests new features in its first year and a half. It has the look and overall feel of old Twitter but it's not made for current events and live conversation and leans more into a “For You” model based on your past activity and interests.

From a media perspective, reporters have utilized it to share articles, videos, podcasts and discuss current events/news. However, Mosseri has made it clear that Threads has little interest in pushing news and politics in its algorithm, which limits some of the reach in sharing articles, videos and other content.

Threads’ algorithm has not made it ideal for sports media, either. #NBAThreads is trying its best to replicate the magic of NBA Twitter, but so far, to no avail. NBA Twitter at its best was a ragtag cadre of journalists and anonymous weirdos chopping it up in real time, each taking the other way more seriously than either party deserved. (A loose confederation of posters known as “Weird Celtics Twitter” even broke through the social media bubble to award various players nicknames that stuck in real life – that’s reach!)

Then there’s the fact that posts are not shown chronologically and you sometimes end up with “breaking news” posts appearing on your feed days later. Threads needs to give up on staying out of politics/news in order for it to be the town square where people watch and converse about sports/reality TV live in real time.

First Impressions Of Bluesky

The first few days on Bluesky resemble my experience in 2013 when I’d refresh and scroll through Twitter for sports news, live results, and commentary in chronological order. In recent years (mostly since the Musk takeover), that Twitter feed has been infiltrated by porn bots, ads, crypto scams and political trolls. Upon a close look at our website/post analytics, engagement with shared content on Twitter has decreased. Bluesky doesn’t appear to suppress any of that and offers up that chronological feed many of us have been yearning for. That could be handy when sharing live updates from a race or event.

Because Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform, users own their own data, and migrate to different servers. Its AT Protocol is highly touted as its game-changing feature. I’ve yet to experiment with the “feeds” feature but the app/site has a lot to offer.

One cool feature of BlueSky is its Starter Packs, which allows users to create lists and bundles of recommended follows around a certain topic or theme. We have a CITIUS MAG Track Nerd Starter Pack with our past and present personalities, analysts and commentators.

Who else is on there? It appears accounts have been set up for World Athletics, the Diamond League, and Grand Slam Track, but they have yet to post. If you laughed at Alex Predhome’s track tweets, he appears to be testing new material on Bluesky now. 4x Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson joined on Sunday night and wrote: “Haven’t left X but I’d like to. It’s been the best platform for dialogue, but too many people there are uninterested in productive and thoughtful discussion which is what I’m here for. I will reply and engage with followers. But if it turns to same as X, I’m out. Let’s have some fun!”

That’s how I feel at the moment as well. We’re not leaving the place where we’ve amassed 66.2K engaged and loyal followers yet. In mainstream sports, Shams Charania and Adam Schefter aren’t going to stop breaking news on Twitter. At least not now. Teams and athletes are going to take time rebuilding and raising awareness about their new accounts.

Personally, the first few days of Bluesky have some old Track Twitter feels but we’re still a ways away from having World War III break out over “The World’s Fastest Man” title with Jamaican fans or waking up to the daily “Greatness” post from Fred Kerley. That’s when it will be fun again.

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Bluesky, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.