Bluesky is preparing “communities,” smaller spaces on the AT Protocol, with custom homes, three privacy levels, and feeds designed to let people gather around shared interests. The rollout is planned for sometime this year, as the company looks to move beyond
Bluesky is about to make its social feed feel less like a single, crowded street.
The platform’s head of product. Alex Benzer. says Bluesky will be getting “communities” sometime this year—smaller spaces where people can “go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff.” The idea is built on the decentralized AT Protocol that underpins Bluesky. and Benzer frames it as “a new structure for everyone” inside what he calls “Atmosphere. ” his shorthand for the AT Protocol ecosystem.
Benzer lays out the basic promise: on Bluesky. users will be able to create communities. join them. post in them. and get updates. He also emphasizes that the “core features on Bluesky stay simple.” The shift comes from something bigger—communities also existing “on the open web. ” which Benzer says means they can be “truly customize[d]” and expanded with features from other Atmospheric apps and tools.
Each community will come with a handle that “doubles as a URL.” If you type into that URL, Benzer says you’ll land on a custom homepage for the community. “Builders can also host a completely custom experience there instead.”
Privacy is split into three levels: public, invite-only, and private. Benzer also says each community will have its own feed.
The push lands after Bluesky COO Rose Wang signaled last week that the company wants to move away from being a “public square.” Wang said Bluesky was “very inspired by companies like Reddit. ” pointing to a model where people don’t just broadcast into one stream—they cluster around shared topics and norms.
Other platforms are already circling similar territory. Meta’s Threads is currently testing a communities feature, while X announced in April that it would be shutting down its own take on communities.
Bluesky communities AT Protocol Atmosphere Alex Benzer Rose Wang social media decentralized social privacy levels Threads X