Graze: A New Era for Bluesky Feeds
Graze, a startup that enables users to construct personalised feeds for the Bluesky social network, has garnered considerable interest from investors. Apart from providing tools that simplify the creation, customisation, publishing, and management of Bluesky feeds, Graze is set to introduce monetisation options for feed creators through advertising, sponsored content, and subscription services.
Essentially, Graze has discovered a potentially successful business model for Bluesky before the platform itself has. This has caught the eye of investors, with Graze on the verge of announcing the completion of a highly successful pre-seed funding round.
Co-founder and CEO Peat Bakke mentioned that, after 30 years in tech startups, this growth trajectory has been unprecedented. The platform has swiftly transformed from having zero traffic to attracting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors daily, resulting in tens of millions of content impressions. The rapid growth has been entirely driven by word-of-mouth recommendations.
Bakke is partnered with co-founder Devin Gaffney, who boasts a strong background in social media and network analysis. Their collaboration began about a decade ago at Little Bird, a social data analysis startup that extracted valuable insights from Twitter’s extensive feed, often referred to as the Firehose.
Today, they are utilising Bluesky’s new generation of data flow named “Jetstream,” which includes public posts from over 30.3 million users while accommodating future applications built on the AT Protocol.
Bakke noted their longstanding interest in social networks, particularly emerging ones, to observe the latest trends and developments.
In light of the recent surge of users migrating to Bluesky from X, especially following the U.S. presidential elections, the founders eagerly capitalised on this momentum to re-enter the market.
In November, they launched Graze, a tool enabling Bluesky users to design their personalised algorithms through custom feeds that utilise sophisticated logic, various filters, and regulations. The community has swiftly embraced the platform’s features.
Graze’s rapid growth is further propelled by the rising popularity of Bluesky, which welcomed 23 million new users in the past year.
While Bluesky bears a resemblance to X (formerly Twitter) with its text-centric approach, timeline, and direct messaging, it presents a more egalitarian experience compared to conventional social media platforms. Unlike being controlled by billionaire proprietors such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, users can operate their own Bluesky Personal Data Servers and establish individual moderation settings. They can also devise custom feeds to manage content, eliminating reliance solely on Bluesky’s algorithms.
Graze operates seamlessly on Bluesky’s Jetstream, utilising atproto to enable users to create not only feeds but also personalised websites and experiences based on their tailored interpretations of Jetstream.
For example, a Graze client is developing a social media platform aimed at professionals.
Graze provides a powerful toolset that enables users to devise various algorithms for monitoring specific teams and individuals, while also ensuring a work-friendly environment for the feed.
This is the same tool responsible for creating prominent feeds on Bluesky, like News and BookSky.
Several applications that are developing video experiences similar to “TikTok for Bluesky” are also utilising Graze’s toolset.
What is notably intriguing is that Graze stands out as one of the few platforms focusing on monetising these tailored Bluesky feeds, with the approval of the Bluesky team.
The startup has discreetly trialled sponsored posts through its platform, which integrates ads into personalised feeds. Since Bluesky lacks a feature to distinguish ads within its product, these posts employ a specific hashtag to denote themselves as promotional content.
Bakke mentions that advertisers are unable to simply purchase large sums of advertising on another’s news feed. Instead, the advertiser proposes a sponsored post along with their targeted impressions. The feed operator must agree to it, retaining full editorial control over the content included in their feed.
Furthermore, an excessive number of ads may drive users away from the feed, promoting a natural balancing mechanism for the ecosystem.
Advertisers can determine their own pricing for the ads. Currently, Graze recommends a CPM rate between $1 and $3. This price point is considerably less than the costs associated with advertising on other social media platforms, yet the engagement and click-through rates remain competitive.
Graze is also committed to adhering to Bluesky’s privacy standards, meaning that ads are not targeted based on user data or demographic information. Instead, targeting is done based on the specific feeds advertisers wish to engage with. For instance, a pet food brand would likely benefit from advertising in a feed dedicated to animals.
Additional tools from Graze will soon enable the creation of private feeds, including those that necessitate a subscription for access.
With both advertising and subscription services, Graze is aiming for a revenue distribution of 30/70, reminiscent of the App Store model, where creators receive the larger portion. Moreover, it plans to collaborate with brands and businesses to connect them with influencers whose feeds align with their marketing goals through a creator marketplace set to launch next week.
Based in Portland, Graze operates with a small team of three, which includes front-end developer Andrew Lazowski, who is situated in San Jose.