A new chapter for Attie

Bluesky’s AI assistant, Attie, is getting a major upgrade. Originally launched in March as a tool to help users build custom social feeds without writing a single line of code, Attie is now expanding into what the company calls an open-ended research tool. The new feature, named Quests, lets anyone ask Attie questions about what’s happening across the broader Bluesky ecosystem — which the company nicknames the Atmosphere.

That ecosystem doesn’t stop at Bluesky itself. Quests can pull information from any app built on the AT Protocol, the decentralized foundation that underpins the network. So if you’re curious about trending topics, influential voices in a specific city, or even a niche field like open-source gardening tools, Attie can now help you dig into it.

What Quests actually does

Think of Quests as a research assistant for the open social web. Instead of just filtering your feed or recommending accounts, you can ask Attie open-ended questions. For example: “What are the most talked-about topics among climate scientists on Bluesky right now?” or “Who are the top accounts discussing AI policy in Europe?”

The company describes the feature as a way to “fight back against the proliferation of misinformation and noise.” In a blog post, Bluesky’s chief innovation officer Jay Graber — who stepped down as CEO in March and was replaced by Toni Schneider, former founding CEO of Automattic — wrote that Attie is meant to help people “make sense of the internet” and “find the truth yourself.”

Graber also emphasized that the goal is to lower the barrier to entry for using the AT Protocol. “We want Attie to reduce the barrier to entry and expertise required to learn how to use the AT Protocol,” she wrote, “and to put the tools for customizing your experience in the hands of anyone who wants them.”

Why Bluesky needs this now

Bluesky’s user growth has clearly slowed. The social network saw its user base double to 40 million last October — a remarkable surge within just a year — but it now reports around 45.6 million registered accounts. That’s growth of only about 5.6 million over the past eight months.

So the company is looking for fresh ways to expand its audience and, eventually, generate revenue. Attie is free for now, but Bluesky has floated the idea of charging for the service down the road. In March, the company announced it had raised $100 million in funding, giving it some runway to experiment. That cash is being used to explore ideas like Attie, a premium subscription tier, and tools for power users.

Balancing community sentiment with revenue needs

There’s a tension here. Many Bluesky users are openly skeptical of AI — for economic, political, and environmental reasons. The company has to navigate that community sentiment while also figuring out how to keep the lights on. Attie is one of the more visible attempts to strike that balance: a useful AI tool that doesn’t feel like an intrusion, and that might one day become a paid service.

Graber acknowledged that Attie is being redesigned with accessibility features and a new logo. More changes are coming in the months ahead.

What’s next for Attie (and who gets access)

For now, the new Attie experience is in beta. Users will be invited in from a waitlist over the coming weeks. The company hasn’t shared a specific timeline for a wider rollout, but the direction is clear: Attie is no longer just a feed-builder. It’s becoming a research tool for the open social web.

The bigger picture is that Bluesky is betting that tools like Attie will prove more useful than the algorithmic noise machines that dominate much of social media today. As Graber put it, “Our bet is that tools that help people make sense of the world will prove to be more useful than those that fill it with confusion.”

Whether users will pay for that clarity is an open question. But for now, the company is focused on getting the tool right — and getting it into more hands.

If you’re interested in how Bluesky’s approach compares to other platforms, you might also want to check out our guide on WhatsApp HD photo sending or read about the latest WhatsApp privacy settings.

The Living Room Is YouTube’s New Frontier

YouTube isn’t just for phones anymore. The platform is making a serious play for the biggest screen in the house — your TV. And the numbers back it up: YouTube reports that viewers now watch over 1 billion hours of content daily on TV screens. That’s not a niche. That’s a shift in how people consume video.

For marketers, this changes the game. Not in the cliché sense — literally. The way someone watches a video on a phone, hunched over during a commute, is completely different from how they experience it on a 65-inch OLED while lounging on a couch. Lean back vs. lean forward. Distracted vs. immersed.

If you’re still creating content with only mobile in mind, you’re leaving a massive audience segment on the table. Here’s how to fix that.

Why Connected TV Viewers Are Different

Think about the last time you watched YouTube on a TV. You probably weren’t scrolling. You weren’t multitasking. You were sitting back, maybe with a remote in hand, expecting a polished, high-production experience.

Connected TV (CTV) viewers behave differently. They watch longer sessions — often 20 minutes or more. They’re less likely to click away after five seconds. But they’re also more critical of poor audio, shaky camera work, and text that’s too small to read from across the room.

This audience isn’t hunting for quick how-tos. They want documentaries, deep dives, vlogs with a narrative arc, and content that feels like it belongs on a premium screen. If your video looks like it was shot on a webcam in 2010, they’ll bounce.

Optimize Your Channel for TV Discovery

YouTube on TV doesn’t work the same way as the mobile app. The interface is simplified. There’s no endless sidebar of suggested videos. Instead, the home screen features large thumbnails, bold titles, and a heavy emphasis on your channel’s brand identity.

Thumbnails Need to Pop on a Big Screen

That thumbnail you carefully designed for a phone screen? On a TV, it might look washed out or cluttered. Test your thumbnails at full size on a monitor. Use high contrast colors. Make faces large and expressive. Text should be minimal — three words max, and only if it’s readable from six feet away.

Channel Branding Matters More Than Ever

TV viewers are more likely to browse by channel rather than by individual video. That means your channel banner, logo, and series playlists become critical. If your branding is inconsistent or amateurish, it signals low quality. Invest in a clean, professional channel identity that looks good on a 4K display.

Five Technical Tweaks for TV-Friendly Video

You don’t need a Hollywood budget, but you do need to hit some basic technical thresholds. Here’s a quick checklist:

• Resolution: Upload in 4K if possible. At minimum, 1080p at a high bitrate. TV screens magnify every compression artifact.
• Aspect ratio: Stick to 16:9. Vertical or square videos look terrible on a TV — they get pillarboxed into tiny strips.
• Audio: Use a decent microphone. TV speakers (or soundbars) reveal background noise and echo. Clear, balanced audio is non-negotiable.
• Text and graphics: Don’t put critical information in the bottom third of the frame. TV screens often crop that area. Keep text centered and large.
• Length: Aim for 10–20 minutes. CTV viewers settle in for longer content. Short clips feel like a tease.

New YouTube Features Built for TV

YouTube has rolled out several features specifically for the TV experience, and smart marketers are using them.

YouTube Shorts on TV — Yes, Really

In 2024, YouTube brought Shorts to the TV app. But here’s the twist: they appear in a vertical feed on the side of the screen, not full-screen. That means your Shorts need to work both as standalone vertical clips and as part of a larger TV interface. Keep the first two seconds punchy — that’s your hook on any screen.

QR Codes for Engagement

TV viewers can’t click a link. YouTube solved this with QR codes that appear on screen, letting viewers scan with their phone to subscribe, visit a website, or watch a related video. Add a QR code to your video’s end screen or description. Make it large enough to scan from a couch.

YouTube Select for TV

Brands can now buy ads specifically within YouTube’s TV app inventory. This is premium placement — full-screen, unskippable ads that run before or during long-form content. If your ad creative is built for mobile, it won’t work here. Produce TV-native ads with cinematic pacing and clear calls to action that don’t require a click.

Measuring Success on the Big Screen

Standard YouTube analytics won’t tell you how many viewers are on TV. You need to dig into the device report. Go to YouTube Studio → Analytics → Audience → Device type. Look for the “TV” category. If it’s growing, your strategy is working.

Pay attention to watch time from TV users. It’s usually higher per session than mobile. Also check the “Top videos on TV” report — it shows which of your videos resonate most with this audience. Double down on that format.

One more metric: engagement rate. TV viewers comment less (typing with a remote is painful), but they subscribe more. A spike in subscribers after a video goes live could mean it performed well on TV.

The Bottom Line for Marketers

YouTube on TV isn’t a future trend. It’s happening now. The platform is actively redesigning its interface, ad products, and content formats for the living room. If you’re not optimizing for it, you’re invisible to a growing, high-value audience.

Start small. Update your thumbnails. Check your aspect ratio. Look at your device analytics. Then produce one video specifically for the TV experience — longer, cleaner, more narrative. See what happens.

The couch is the new commute. Make sure your content looks good on it.

The wait is over: Threads gets parental controls

Nearly three years after Threads launched in July 2023, Meta is finally rolling out parental supervision tools for the platform. Starting next week in the U.S., parents and guardians will be able to monitor and manage their teen’s activity on the app through Meta’s Family Center — the same hub that already controls settings across Instagram and Facebook.

The move comes as Meta faces mounting pressure from regulators and lawmakers over teen safety. The company has been expanding parental controls across its apps for years, and Threads — now boasting 500 million monthly users — was a glaring gap. Lawsuits from multiple states and child safety advocates have only sharpened the spotlight.

So what can parents actually do? Quite a bit, it turns out.

Screen time tracking and daily limits

Parents will see exactly how much time their teen spends on Threads each day for the past week, including a weekly average. They can then set a daily time limit — and crucially, that limit applies across all devices. If a teen switches from phone to laptop, the clock keeps ticking.

Here’s what the new Threads parental supervision dashboard offers:

• Daily time limit: Set a maximum number of minutes per day. Total time across devices is counted.
• Sleep mode: Block or limit access during specific hours, especially at night. Meta already mutes notifications and turns on auto-replies for all teens from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., but parents can tighten this further.
• Privacy controls: Manage who can tag the teen in posts. Parents can also decide whether teens under 16 are allowed to change their default privacy settings — like private accounts — to something less restrictive.

Meta says teens on Threads already have built-in protections: private accounts by default, and limits on the content they see. But now parents have the final say on whether those settings can be loosened.

Why now? The pressure on Meta is real

It’s no secret that social media companies are under fire. Meta, along with TikTok, Snap, and others, faces a wave of lawsuits from states and school districts alleging that their platforms harm teens’ mental health. The U.S. Senate has held multiple hearings, and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is moving through Congress.

Threads was an obvious weak spot. While Instagram and Facebook have had parental controls for years, the text-based platform — which Meta positioned as a Twitter alternative — had none. For a company that says it prioritizes teen safety, that was a hard gap to explain.

Now, with these tools, Meta can argue that Threads is no longer the Wild West for teens. But critics note that supervision tools only work if parents actually use them — and many don’t.

What about the rest of the world?

The rollout starts in the U.S. next week. Meta told TechCrunch it plans to bring Threads parental supervision globally by the end of 2025. No specific countries or dates have been announced yet.

For parents outside the U.S., that means waiting — but not forever. And for teens? Well, the days of unlimited late-night scrolling on Threads may be numbered.

The bigger picture: Are parental controls enough?

Parental supervision tools are a step forward, but they’re not a silver bullet. A time limit doesn’t stop a teen from seeing harmful content during the minutes they are online. And Meta’s own research has shown that teens often find ways around parental controls — using friends’ phones, for example.

Still, the Threads parental supervision rollout is a meaningful addition. It gives parents a window into their teen’s digital habits, and a way to set boundaries without confiscating the phone entirely. For a platform that grew to half a billion users in less than three years, that kind of oversight was long overdue.

Whether it will satisfy regulators — or the parents filing lawsuits — is another question entirely.