Improvements in Unread Cloud and Local Accounts Around Showing Bluesky Posts

I just deployed improvements to Unread Cloud for the benefit of customers who subscribe to feeds of Bluesky accounts. Feed text for Bluesky posts now includes the full post content. This includes formatting, embedded images, and quoted posts. Webpage text for Bluesky posts already included this content, regardless of what type of feed service account (Unread Cloud, Feedbin, Feedly, etc.) you were using. Now this content is available right in the feed text if you are using an Unread Cloud account or a Local account.

When a Bluesky post contains a link to an outside article, Unread will now treat the post as a link article when using an Unread Cloud account or a Local account. If you show Feed and Webpage Text for such an article, you will see the Bluesky post and the full content of the article to which it links. This works just like link articles from Daring Fireball, for example. For customers who subscribe to Unread’s premium features and have webpage text caching enabled, the full text of the linked article will already be stored locally when you open such a Bluesky post. Therefore Unread will display it very quickly.

How It Works

Bluesky provides an RSS feed for each user. Bluesky’s feeds contain the text of and link to each post, but they exclude information such as formatting and embedded images. Fortunately Bluesky has an API that makes it feasible to obtain this additional information. Unread’s webpage text servers have been taking advantage of the Bluesky API to generate good webpage text for Bluesky posts for some time. Unread Cloud now takes advantage of this API so that the feed text for a Bluesky post includes the full content and so that Unread can display any article to which a Bluesky post links.

Webpage Text Settings

For new feed subscriptions, the default settings for a Bluesky feed subscription when in an Unread Cloud account or a Local account make Unread show Feed Text for traditional articles and Webpage Text for link articles. In Feedbin, Feedly, Fever, Inoreader, and NewsBlur accounts the default settings for a Bluesky feed subscription make Unread show Webpage Text. You may wish to update your settings for existing Bluesky feed subscriptions. A more detailed description of Unread’s webpage text capabilities and these settings is available.

The Bluesky changes apply to Bluesky posts made after 3:00 PM Boston time today (Monday).