Here's how the rebranding from Twitter to X has affected Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon:
In the first week (July 23-August 5) of the rebrand, Threads downloads dropped 70%, leaving the app ranked 16th Overall. But Bluesky and Mastodon saw downloads increase by 180% and 15%, respectively — an indication that those fleeing the new X largely turned to Bluesky instead.
However, in the weeks that followed (August 8-20), Threads saw an uptick in downloads with growth up by roughly 50% while also moving up one spot to 12th Overall in the category rankings. By this time, Threads had also rolled out a number of new features, including a chronological feed. Bluesky and Mastodon, on the other hand, saw downloads decline after the rebranding of X subdued, with installs dropping 25% and 40%, respectively.
The “X-odus,” in other words, has not settled on a new platform.
In other words, the rebrand to X has been everyone else's gains.
What's more notable to me, though, is that Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon are either federated or are intending federation in the near future.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much of a migration to emerging centralized social media platforms. Nobody's talking about Hive, Tribel, or Post -- all Twitter alternatives that gained notice in November 2022.
The future of social media seems to be decentralization.
