Skylight, a fledgling startup, is carving out a distinct niche in the short-form video landscape. Unlike mainstream social media applications that confine users to algorithm-driven main feeds, Skylight is fostering a community centered on human curators. These curators curate and share videos to craft personalized feeds, which other users can then subscribe to.

This new feature, rolled out on Monday as part of the app’s 2.0 update, is likely to resonate with two key groups of users. First, it appeals to those growing increasingly wary of the algorithmic manipulations employed by traditional social platforms. Second, it caters to individuals frustrated by the surge of low-quality AI-generated content that has flooded many of these conventional feeds.

Developed on Bluesky’s social network and its underlying AT Protocol, Skylight made its debut in April, positioning itself as an open alternative to video apps such as TikTok. In the months since its launch, the app has garnered approximately 240,000 downloads and has seen 100,000 videos uploaded to its platform. Additionally, Skylight secured early-stage funding from notable figures like Mark Cuban and other investors.

Similar to other platforms in this space, Skylight gains a competitive edge in user base expansion by enabling users to authenticate via their Bluesky credentials. Currently, Bluesky boasts over 38.4 million users, who can install, operate, and log into a diverse ecosystem of open social apps. This ecosystem includes Skylight as well as other applications designed for videos, photos, blogs, wikis, and more.

With the release of Skylight 2.0, the company is placing a strong emphasis on enhancing curation capabilities. Users now have the ability to create their own “curator” feeds in multiple ways: by posting and reposting videos directly, or by utilizing third-party tools to build customized feeds.

In the near future, Skylight plans to integrate technology from Graze—a platform specialized in building custom feeds. This integration will allow Skylight users to create these personalized feeds within the Skylight app itself, eliminating the need to switch to external tools.

Accessing these curated feeds is straightforward: users simply swipe left from the app’s main page to browse through the available curated selections. If they come across a curator whose content they enjoy, they can tap the plus (+) button to add that curator’s feed to their own collection. Curators that a user already follows will also be featured in this browsing experience.

The 2.0 update further includes integrations with other services tailored for the open social web. Notably, Skylight has partnered with Streamplace, a livestreaming platform that also operates on the AT Protocol— the same protocol used by Bluesky and Skylight. By leveraging Streamplace’s existing technology, Skylight successfully added a livestreaming feature to its app without having to develop the functionality from scratch.

Moreover, Skylight’s app now features a redesigned video player with a full-screen mode. It also offers a split-screen viewing option, allowing users to watch videos while simultaneously browsing through user profiles or searching for additional content.

Skylight is the brainchild of a two-person team: co-founders Tori White (who serves as CEO) and Reed Harmeyer (who acts as CTO). A significant portion of the app’s buzz is generated through TikTok, where Tori White maintains an account. On this account, she shares updates about Skylight’s development progress, and it has now amassed over 63,000 followers.

These TikTok updates have proven effective in driving app installations. For example, Tori White told TechCrunch that Skylight gained an additional 20,000 downloads in the past week alone—even before the launch of the 2.0 version. She attributes this growth, in part, to consumers’ growing interest in moving away from established social platforms and joining open-source social communities.

Skylight is available as a free download on both iOS and Android devices. The company’s roadmap includes plans to add more features in the future, such as music integration, bookmark functionality, and an account switcher.