Liz Laine Reps, Chicago, is handling Midwest sales for Primal Scream, Santa Monica, and London-based animation company Exposure Films….The Blue Rock Editing Co., New York, has added Marisa Stubin as sales rep….Lisa Osrin has been named in-house East Coast sales rep for The Firm, New York….Darren Mark has come aboard Beehive, New York, as business development director….Rob Russo Promotions, New York, is handling national sales for New York-based motion graphics shop Velocity Design Group….Michael Bove, formerly of Big Foote Music, New York, has been named West Coast rep for Val’s Artist Management, a New York-headquartered personal management boutique that specializes in handling singers for commercials….Cinematographer Harris Savides has wrapped principal photography on Jonathan Glazer’s film, Birth, and is again available for spots through The Skouras Agency, Santa Monica….
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More