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Social networking startup Bluesky is rolling out one of users\u2019 most in-demand features \u2014 no, not an edit button! \u2014 bookmarks. <\/p>\n
The company on Monday announced the new addition, which it calls Saved Posts. The feature is accessible through a new bookmark icon underneath each post, next to the heart for favoriting.<\/p>\n
Your saved posts can then be viewed at any time from the new \u201cSaved\u201d section in the app\u2019s main navigation. <\/p>\n
While it may seem redundant to have both likes and bookmarks on a social app since both offer a way to mark a post to be referenced later, bookmarks offer a private alternative to the \u201clike.\u201d On Bluesky, your account and its associated data are public, which means your likes are also public. That doesn\u2019t work for everyone, as some things you save are personal, or simply aren\u2019t the types of things you want to publicly advertise.<\/p>\n
Journalists, for example, may save posts they aim to reference later, but don\u2019t necessarily want to broadcast that they\u2019ve just started looking into something, which could invite unwanted attention. Others may simply want to bookmark their favorite adult content.<\/p>\n
On X, Elon Musk realized that the public nature of likes could actually decrease engagement, which prompted the company last year to hide users\u2019 likes<\/a>. According to X employees at the time, public likes could incentivize the wrong behavior, as people could feel discouraged from liking content that may be \u201cedgy,\u201d or to protect their public image, they said.<\/p>\n The AT Protocol<\/a>, which powers Bluesky and other smaller social apps, doesn\u2019t yet support private data, however, so there isn\u2019t a way to hide users\u2019 likes. Instead, the company built a way to save a user\u2019s bookmarks off-protocol<\/a> for the time being, which allows them to be private, similar to Bluesky\u2019s DMs (private messages). If and when the protocol evolves to support private data, things could change<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the meantime, the addition of saved posts on Bluesky could encourage users to engage more with content on the platform, while also offering a way to look back at a curated collection of only posts you want to reference later, rather than everything you casually liked as you scrolled your feeds. It will also offer an alternative to replying to posts with that red pushpin emoji, as many Bluesky users do now as a workaround for saving posts they want to return to. (There\u2019s even a nice little migration tool<\/a> for those who used this method.)<\/p>\n The addition follows another recent update for the Bluesky app, which rolled out only days ago<\/a>, offering a button that now offers both photo and video uploads, tools to provide feedback to custom feed creators, and a way to add people to a Starter Park (a pack of recommended people to follow, which anyone can create). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n