Bounce is a technology aimed at making your social media profiles easily transferable between open social platforms, and it now enables users to shift their Mastodon accounts to Bluesky. On Tuesday, the Bounce team rolled out the newest beta, Bounce 2, which allows you to transfer or combine your Mastodon social connections with your Bluesky account profile.
Starting October 20, this update will let people on the open social web move their accounts in both directions—either from Mastodon to Bluesky or the other way around. The purpose is to ensure users aren’t locked into a particular service if they disagree with its policies, development, moderation, or other aspects. Instead, they can simply take their account and switch platforms.
Bounce’s tool for migrating between protocols was initially launched in August by the nonprofit A New Social, which is focused on building technologies to make the open social web easier to use and more effective.
Currently, the open social web is powered by various protocols, such as ActivityPub—which supports Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, PeerTube, Pixelfed, and more—and the AT Protocol, which is the foundation for Bluesky, Skylight, and other social platforms.
These two protocols do not work together directly, which is why bridging tools—solutions that link different platforms—have been created. At present, users can connect their accounts so people on other networks can follow their updates, regardless of which service they use.
Bounce is based on technology originally developed for Bridgy Fed, another tool that links Mastodon and Bluesky by making user profiles visible across both platforms.
Initially, the service could transfer a user’s Bluesky account to a bridged profile that spans both networks, and then to the user’s Mastodon account.
Image Credits:Bridgy Fed diagram (A New Social)
With the release of Bounce 2, the process can now go the other way: Mastodon users can move their social connections to Bluesky, or merge them into a bridged profile linked to their Bluesky (or ATProto) account.
The organization points out that the process differs slightly when transferring in this direction.
If you transfer from Bluesky to Mastodon and the Mastodon account is already bridged, your follower lists will be combined rather than overwritten. Also, when moving from Mastodon to Bluesky, your previous posts and content will not transfer, unlike when going the other way.
“We see platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon as gateways to the open social web, but those gateways shouldn’t lock users into another closed ecosystem,” A New Social stated in an announcement. “Everyone should have the freedom to switch platforms, use the tools that suit them best, and stay connected with their communities, no matter what service they choose.”
Bounce 2 will be available later this month, and supporters can help the nonprofit through Patreon or by purchasing merchandise.
