Hello, world! Last week I introduced Autoblue on my personal Bluesky account, where it got a very good reception.
I realised I never really dug into any specifics, so I figured I should set the record straight and give you a “proper” launch post. I put proper in parentheses because it’s not really a launch post—I’m currently working on Autoblue pretty much full-time to get it ready for an official launch.
(That being said, you can already download the alpha version on the homepage if you’re adventurous enough and want to give it a try! At the time of writing this, it supports automatic sharing but no likes and replies yet.)
In this post, I want to talk a bit more about Autoblue, how it came to be, what my plans are with it, and how you can be a part of that future.
What’s Autoblue?
As the homepage says, the goal of Autoblue is to integrate Bluesky into your WordPress website. This will be done with two main features:
- Automatically sharing WordPress posts to your Bluesky account.
- Displaying Bluesky likes and replies on your WordPress posts.
You post a new post or article on your WordPress site, and it’ll appear on your Bluesky profile automatically. People will (hopefully) engage with it, leaving likes and replies. In turn, these likes and replies will show up underneath your post on your website.
To me, this is the best of both worlds. For most people, the barrier to leave a reply on a social media platform like Bluesky is much lower than leaving a comment on a website, so your post will likely get a lot more interaction on Bluesky.
On the other hand, social media is fleeting. Somebody might find your blog post a week, a month, or even years later, but the chances of them searching for the accompanying social media post to see what others had to say about it are pretty close to zero.
With Autoblue, those problems are solved—you get to display and preserve all likes and replies, even on older posts. Plus, you won’t have to remember to share your posts after publishing them, since Autoblue will take care of that for your as well.
This is just the start! I have lots of ideas for Autoblue’s future:
- Scheduled shares: publish a post and share it at a later time of your choosing,
- Resharing: share older posts again with different text and/or image.
- Multiple accounts: connect multiple accounts and pick and choose which ones to share to on a per-post basis.
- Domain verification: use your website’s domain as your Bluesky handle with the click of a button.
- Stats: see how well your shares and your Bluesky account are doing.
- Custom images and videos: include images and videos with your shared posts.
- Calendar: get an overview of all your scheduled shares.
- Send posts manually: share directly to your Bluesky account, without publishing a post first.
- Moderation tools: easily hide Bluesky replies on both your website and Bluesky profile.
These are just a few ideas, and while none of them are set in stone, I do think they give a good impression of how much is possible for the future.
Why Autoblue?
In 2021, I created Social Image Generator, a plugin that automatically generated social media images for your posts. Only a couple months after launch Automattic acquired Social Image Generator. There, I worked on Jetpack Social for almost two years, before deciding to set out on my own to create products again.
All this to say that I’ve been interested in integrating social media into WordPress for a while now. I truly believe Bluesky has a big future ahead, and I personally really enjoy using it, so building Autoblue seems like a natural progression for me.
Will Autoblue be free?
Yes and no. Autoblue will be a freemium plugin, which means that there will be a free version available that lets you share to Bluesky automatically, and display likes and replies on your website. Some of the features above will also be free, while others will be part of the premium (paid) version.
I haven’t figured out which features will be paid yet, nor how much it will cost. What I do know is that I want the price to be accessible, while also making Autoblue’s future sustainable.
What’s next?
Like I wrote earlier, I’m currently working on Autoblue pretty much full-time. I’m building it in public, sharing all my ideas, challenges and progress here and on my Bluesky account.
I want to hear from you! Feedback—especially at this stage—is invaluable to me. If you have any ideas or requests, please ping me on Bluesky.