A major development showcasing the potential for the open social web was unveiled Thursday at the online conference known as FediForum<\/a>.<\/p>\n The\u00a0makers<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Bridgy Fed<\/a>, the tool that connects decentralized open social networks, like Mastodon and Bluesky, developed a new project called Bounce<\/a> that will allow users to migrate their social network followers across networks powered by different protocols.<\/p>\n This is a significant step toward making the open social web a more viable alternative to the locked-in ecosystems provided by tech giants like Meta, Snap, Google, TikTok, and X \u2014 and where you may be able to delete your account and export your data when you leave, but not actually migrate your account to a new app.<\/p>\n Today, Mastodon, Bluesky, and other social services that run on their protocols (ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, respectively) allow users to move their accounts within their protocol network. <\/p>\n That means a Mastodon user can migrate their account to another Mastodon server<\/a>, while Bluesky allows users to move their accounts and data from one Personal Data Server (PDS) to another<\/a>. (The latter is still a work in progress because you can move off of Bluesky\u2019s PDS but not back to it!)<\/p>\n However, it hasn\u2019t been possible for users to move their accounts or retain their followings by moving from one network to another. <\/p>\n Now led by a nonprofit called A New Social<\/a>, the makers of Bridgy Fed have developed technology that will make this type of migration possible. <\/p>\n The tech builds on Bridgy Fed to allow users to \u201cmove\u201d their Bluesky account to their Mastodon profile\u2019s bridged account (an account that listens for your Mastodon posts and then replicates them on Bluesky so your Bluesky followers can see them), then take the bridged account and \u201cmove\u201d it to the user\u2019s Mastodon profile. <\/p>\n How all this works under the hood is technically complicated because both platforms have different ways of handling migrations. That\u2019s why Bridgy Fed has to function as something of a middleman, enabling the transition with servers of its own, custom-built for the purpose of bridging and moves. <\/p>\n Currently a proof-of-concept, the technology will launch into beta in a few weeks \u2014 but not for the casual user. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to go as far as saying it\u2019s a tech demo, but it was really important to prove that this is possible,\u201d says New Social\u2019s CEO and executive director, Anuj Ahooja. <\/p>\n There are some complications at present, too. You can\u2019t move back to Bluesky\u2019s PDS because the social network hasn\u2019t built out that technology yet, for starters. <\/p>\n Also, if someone on Bluesky who isn\u2019t bridged interacts with your \u201cmoved\u201d account, you won\u2019t see that once you\u2019re on the Mastodon side. But the team is working on developing a feature that will notify you of off-bridge interactions, Ahooja says. <\/p>\n In addition, Bounce alerts you to how many of the people you follow aren\u2019t bridged, so if they ever do bridge, you can re-follow them.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the team hopes the technology in Bounce would be obscured from the everyday open social user, who could instead decide simply what app they want to use and then go through a few short steps to move their following. <\/p>\n And while today, Bounce supports Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed (an ActivityPub-based photo-sharing app), the longer-term goal would be to support any open social platform and protocol, whether that\u2019s a long-form blogging platform like Ghost, or even other networks like those running on Nostr or Farcaster.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to create an interface for the open social web to handle some of these tougher movements that you have to make,\u201d explained Ahooja. \u201cSo, if you\u2019re unhappy with something Bluesky is doing \u2014 or even if you\u2019re not unhappy, but you feel like a platform on the ActivityPub side is doing something that you really needed to do\u2026[you could] do these couple of clicks on Bounce,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Bounce is the third project from A New Social. In addition to Bridgy Fed, the organization also launched a settings page<\/a> a few weeks ago that makes the process of preparing to bridge easier and allows you to set a custom domain for your account.<\/p>\n The overall goal at A New Social is to shift the power of social networks back to the people, not the platform makers, by giving them tools that let them move their account and their followings, and leave if a platform ever fails them in some way.<\/p>\n This motto of \u201cPeople not Platforms\u201d is now\u00a0emblazoned on merch<\/a>\u00a0A New Social sells, like tees, hoodies, hats, cups, and stickers that help monetize its efforts, alongside its\u00a0Patreon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Bounce-Screenshot-2.png?w=527\")