Bluesky and X's bids to become TikTok scream more 'Threads' than anything

Amidst the recent Tiktok fiasco, Bluesky and X are the latest platforms to throw their hat in the ring to replace the short-form streaming giant - releasing a series of new features in a bid to entice users to their platforms.

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We've seen this pattern before with Threads, where Meta quickly rolled out their own Twitter-like app with the hope of capitalizing on the instability following Elon Musk's acquisition of X, formerly Twitter. This strategy worked - for maybe a week. Until people eventually reverted back to platforms that were actually designed for this functionality.

For users who are unaware, Tiktok was essentially banned last week by the Biden administration but recently delayed by President Trump, who signed an executive order on Monday to delay the order by 75 days. This has thrown both users and the market itself into a tailspin - as millions try to figure out where they can get their short-form fix.

For now, Tiktok is not available on the app store. We'd expect that new users are flocking to Instagram Reels to fill the void. However, upon TikTok's return, it's likely that - similar to what we saw with X and Threads - most users will revert to the mean.

As for the new BlueSky feature, users are now able to create personalized video feeds, and can pin those feeds to their homepage. Users will now be able to swipe up to enter a time of only video posts -- similar to TikTok. This new feature has already spawned popular video feeds such as #BookSkyVids, a feed dedicated to books.

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X has rolled out a similar feature in the form of a small play button at the base of the app's UI. Users can press on this and will be presented with a TikTok-style video feed where they can like, comment, and share videos. At the moment there isn't a way for X users to have a video feed dedicated to just video content posted by accounts they are following.