New push features: Bluesky wants to engage sports fans with more control and live updates

Kim Muntinga

8.7.2025

Translation: machine translated

With the latest update, Bluesky is introducing new options for push notifications. You can now specify which accounts you want to be informed about new activities. Sports discussions in particular should benefit from this.

The social media platform Bluesky has released an important update for notifications. The network wants to give you more control over your timeline. And, above all, appeal more to sports fans.

What's new

Bluesky names a total of three key innovations:

• Activity notifications for individual accounts: You decide whether you want to be notified of new articles, quotes or replies from specific users.
• Fine control: You can control notifications very precisely, for example only for new articles, but not for replies or likes.
• Improved overview: The notification settings have been revised and are now easier to access.

The new system also integrates the former «Priority Notifications» function. If you had activated notifications there exclusively for followed accounts, these settings will remain in place.

In a decentralised network like Bluesky, which does not use algorithmic sorting, this new control over your own timeline is an important step. You decide what you want to see and from whom.

Sports discussions in focus

Bluesky has stated several times in recent months that expanding its presence in sports discussions is a top priority. Although the latest blog post does not explicitly mention this aspect, the new notification functions are aimed precisely at such scenarios.

Because sports discussions thrive on real time. If you follow sports journalists, fan accounts or athletes, for example, you can now activate targeted notifications. This keeps you up to date during matches, tournaments or important moments in the off-season.

Back in May, Bluesky tested a «Live» badge for sports content, which is designed to display live broadcasts more prominently. It currently works primarily as a link to external streams on YouTube or Twitch. Bluesky is signalling that in future you should be able to follow sporting events in real time and not just in summaries.

Bluesky vs. X: the status quo in the sports sector

Despite increasing user numbers, Bluesky still lags far behind X (formerly Twitter) in the sports sector. X continues to be the dominant platform for live commentary, breaking news and viral memes relating to sporting events. Depending on the source, the platform has around 350 to 600 million monthly active users worldwide and has built up a strong scene of sports journalists, teams and leagues.

Bluesky, on the other hand, has around 36.5 million registered users. Although the Community is growing, there have recently been mixed signals in terms of activity and reach. Individual engagement figures are stagnating, and many prominent journalists remain active on X for the time being or use Bluesky as a secondary utilisation at most.

Kim Muntinga

Editor

Kim.Muntinga@galaxus.de

My interests are varied, I just like to enjoy life. Always on the lookout for news about darts, gaming, films and series.

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