Bluesky Expands Long-Form Publishing to Challenge X Articles

While Elon Musk’s X offers long-form publishing through its Articles feature exclusively to paid subscribers and business accounts, Bluesky is taking a different approach to long-form content across its growing social ecosystem.

On Thursday, Bluesky released an updated version of its application that integrates with Standard.site, a community-built project designed for publishing long-form content on the same AT Protocol that powers Bluesky.

The integration allows Bluesky users to discover and engage with content that extends beyond the platform’s traditional short-form posts. Users can now access articles, newsletters, and blog posts published across the broader network of AT Protocol-powered applications, collectively known as the “Atmosphere.”

The ecosystem includes publishing platforms such as Leaflet, pckt, and Offprint, which are aimed at independent writers, publishers, and creators who want greater control over their content while expanding its reach across the open web.

Initially, these long-form publications will appear on Bluesky as enhanced dynamic link cards that provide richer content previews. The company noted that this is only the beginning of the rollout and that support for long-form publishing will continue to evolve with future updates.

The move marks the second major feature expansion driven by projects developed by the Bluesky community. Earlier this year, startup Germ became the first private messaging service to launch directly from within Bluesky’s application via a similar integration approach.

By focusing on shared infrastructure alongside its social networking client, Bluesky can benefit from the broader ecosystem of applications built on the AT Protocol. At the same time, third-party developers gain access to distribution through Bluesky’s rapidly expanding user base, which now exceeds 44.5 million registered users.

The long-form content expansion follows WordPress’s recent announcement of a plugin that enables WordPress publishers to distribute content directly into the Atmosphere. The plugin joins existing WordPress tools that already support publishing to open social networks built on ActivityPub, including platforms such as Mastodon.

Like Bluesky’s implementation, the WordPress integration relies on Standard. site’s lexicon records. This means blog posts become native data within the AT Protocol ecosystem rather than existing solely as external links shared on social platforms. As a result, any application built on the AT Protocol can potentially display and distribute that content directly to users.

The latest integration offers another glimpse into Bluesky’s broader vision for an open social web, where content and data remain portable, openly accessible, and available across multiple applications. Under this model, users can move between personal data servers while maintaining control of their identity and content. Although Bluesky originally operated the first personal data server, users now have alternatives from providers including Eurosky, Blacksky, Northsky, and others.

This philosophy stands in sharp contrast to X’s approach, where content — whether short-form or long-form — remains largely confined to its own platform and can only be embedded elsewhere on the web.

However, X continues to hold a significant advantage in terms of audience reach, with approximately 550 million monthly active users. That level of distribution remains a challenge for competitors, including Bluesky and other open social platforms.

Alongside the long-form publishing support, Bluesky’s latest update (version 1.122) introduces several additional improvements. These include an updated GIF picker, a redesigned photo viewer, expanded account-level moderation labels, and a fix for an iOS issue that had been silently causing some video uploads to fail.