Bluesky teases 2026 roadmap: a better Discover feed, real-time features and more

Summary

Social network Bluesky is teasing its roadmap for the year ahead, emphasizing a focus on things like improving the app’s algorithmic Discover feed, offering its users better recommendations on who to follow, giving the app more of a real-time feel, and more. At the same time, the company admitted that it needs to work on getting the “basics” right, too. Launched to the public in early 2024 after an invite-only period, the decentralized X and Threads alternative has since scaled to over 42 million users, according to data sourced directly from the Bluesky API for developers. Though it’s differentiated from mainstream social media with its custom feeds and configurable algorithms, Bluesky hasn’t caught up to rivals with regard to basic features, like private accounts, drafts, support for longer videos, and more. Bluesky’s head of product, Alex Benzer, acknowledged some of these concerns in a new post on the company’s website, where he said that the “basics need to be solid” before Bluesky can expect users to stick around. Those remarks come after a usage slowdown on Bluesky, which saw a 40% year-over-year drop in daily active users as of October 2025, according to data from market intelligence provider Similarweb, as reported by Forbes. Image Credits:Bluesky In addition to supporting drafts, Benzer said the app’s composer should handle media better, noting that three-minute-long videos aren’t enough, and videos should upload faster. Plus, he wants Bluesky to support posting more than four photos at a time, and thinks threads should be easier to create, too. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 The need for private accounts wasn’t addressed, but those will take longer to realize, Bluesky has previously explained. The plan is for the underlying protocol, the AT Protocol (or AT Proto for short), to eventually support private accounts. But that won’t be coming anytime soon. Benzer also pointed to improvements to the app’s Discover feed, which could add top...