Until now, Bluesky lacked the ability to enable notifications for specific accounts, but now real-time activity notifications are available. If you want to know every time The Verge or ESPN or one of your friends posts, you can do so by simply clicking the bell icon on their profile page, along with the option to see notifications for new posts only or with replies to them as well.
It’s a feature I’m already used to on other platforms, especially Twitter, where news users can update their audience on a minute-by-minute basis, making it easier to follow interesting topics or story developments.
This is doubly important for sports, and Bluesky called increasing his presence in sports discussions a “top priority.” So far, ESPN reporter and Woj heir apparent Shams Charania hasn’t brought his free agency reporting to the platform (along with X, Threads, and the ESPN app), but now that account-specific push notifications are available, perhaps he will.
Another small change is that it can also notify people if someone likes or reblogs something they reposted.
Of course, if your problem is that you get too many notifications, the updates that came out on Monday also have something for you. There are now a huge number of detailed settings that allow you to decide whether you want to receive notifications for reports, likes, new followers, or other activity, and whether you want to receive them from everyone, no one, or just those you follow. According to the blog post, the simple “prioritize notifications” toggle that was previously available has been moved to the new settings, so anyone who turns it on will only receive notifications from people they follow.
