It's been one of those news-dense weeks that seem to be more and more common these days, dominated by an off-year U.S. election that included New York's highly watched mayoral race. If you already followed a swath of political, media, or New York-based accounts you were likely already in the know, but what if you just wanted to follow for a day or so, or dip into the news without it dominating your timeline?

This NYC politics feed from Gothamist shows how Bluesky's custom feeds are invaluable for gleaning insight from the firehose of news. This feed was built on Graze, a third-party feed building app, so the sources and algorithm are publicly available and even remixable, so anyone can see where the posts are coming from or build their own version.

The feed starts with a wide number of sources, including individual accounts selected by Gothamist, starter packs, and a dozen or so lists totaling hundreds of sources — far too many to follow on their own if you're only interested in a particular story. By layering on search terms that pull out posts relevant to the election and then sorting by most recent, the feed shifts from being an illegible flood of posts to a useful and relevant curation of information. It's complex, yet completely transparent, and the resulting feed has been invaluable for providing a real-time view of the race and the reporting that's followed.

Graze put together an extensive write-up of not just how they worked with WNYC and Gothamist to build the election feed but some of the philosophical underpinnings of how the Bluesky approach is different. News organizations whose work has run through the opaque algorithms of centralized social platforms can now better serve their readers. As Graze describes in their writeup:

Graze had a vision for how to provide a high quality curated algorithmic stream that outcompeted any other online experience. WNYC and Gothamist were excited to partner on creating an innovative way to distribute fact-based election information.

What followed on Tuesday was unprecedented:

• 16.7+ million posts delivered to devices worldwide

• 114k+ unique readers engaged with the feed

• Peak traffic of 1,200 posts per second—twice our previous monthly high

• 3.3+ million total interactions across views, likes, reposts, and replies

Third party tools like Graze, SkyFeed, and BlueskyFeedCreator are great for easily getting started with custom feeds and, of course, it's possible to use the Bluesky API directly for even more control.

The election feed shows why feeds are one of my favorite features of Bluesky. The ability to build, curate, and follow custom timelines gives anyone the ability to discover new posts and accounts to follow while keeping control of their timeline.

Since feeds aren't limited to static lists of individuals, it's possible to create sophisticated views of the entire Bluesky firehose that pluck out posts about specific topics or events that wouldn't ordinarily show up in your reverse-chron default timeline.

Feeds are one of the ways that Bluesky and ATProtocol are truly different from traditional social media, giving people control while helping to surface useful information. In addition to giving readers more control, they're empowering for news organizations who want to tap into the global conversation.