Skylight is a TikTok various constructed on belief, not algorithms

The information: Skylight is a brand new short-form video app like TikTok, however as a substitute of utilizing algorithms to resolve what movies customers see, it lets actual folks create and share their very own video feeds, just like Pinterest’s curation mannequin. 

• Built on Bluesky’s decentralized and open protocol, Skylight has clocked 240,000 downloads and 100,000 video uploads since April, per TechCrunch.
• Users can log into Skylight with their Bluesky passwords, the same technique to entry as  Instagram’s Threads, giving it a head begin on rising its consumer base.

Skylight affords extra knowledge management, resilience, and cross-app compatibility—interesting to customers distrustful of centralized platforms.

Zooming in: While Skylight delivers a well timed counter to TikTok, whose future remains clouded by regulatory threats, it enters a saturated short-form video market the place scale and endurance are hard-won.

• Well-established platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat Spotlight dominate due to their huge consumer bases and built-in advert ecosystems.
• Emerging gamers reminiscent of Clapper, RedNote (Xiaohongshu), Lemon8, and Triller have seen episodic spikes.

Why it may work: Skylight’s mannequin mirrors the early days of micro-blogging like Twitter and Tumblr—earlier than content material was buried beneath algorithmic sludge. For advertisers, it’s an opportunity to prioritize significant engagement over passive attain.

In a panorama dominated by algorithm-driven feeds and AI-generated litter, Skylight is betting on human curation to revive relevance, belief, and neighborhood, an strategy prone to resonate with customers craving extra genuine, natural engagement.

The catch: Skylight faces actual hurdles. Discovery stays a problem with out algorithmic scaffolding. Relying on customers to seek out curators—reasonably than being fed content material—provides friction that will gradual development.

Our take: Skylight’s reliance on creator-led feeds provides entrepreneurs a glimpse at what post-algorithm engagement may appear to be. But it stays to be seen if customers take to an alternate method of consuming short-form video.

This content material is a part of EMARKETER’s subscription Briefings, the place we pair day by day updates with knowledge and evaluation from forecasts and analysis stories. Our Briefings put together you to start out your day knowledgeable, to supply essential insights in an necessary assembly, and to know the context of what’s taking place in your business. Non-clients can click on right here to get a demo of our full platform and protection.