Using your own custom domain for your username in the new Bluesky social networking application

So, I'm on the new, much-coveted, probably nothing, Bluesky social network. Long story short: in 2019 Twitter spun out a research group to investigate creating a decentralized, distributed protocol for social media, which - one day - Twitter would then become a client of. Here's Jack Dorsey's tweet. Little did anyone know that less than four short years later, Twitter would fall to Elon Musk's predatory hostile takeover and the spinout would end up representing not just an alternate path forward, but one of the only good paths forward, for Twitter users.

At first glance there's a lot to like. Who knows, though? My thinking on this might age like cheese. Let's talk again in six months. Or a year. But, one thing that is nice is that it lets you choose and use your own custom domain for your handle. My handle is starbuxman.joshlong.com. It wasn't too hard to set this up, but it wasn't obvious, either.

There are only a few steps. Make sure you have a domain (or subdomain). In my case, I own joshlong.com, so I went to my DNS provider and created a CNAME subdomain called starbuxman.joshlong.com.

Then, go to the Bluesky application on your mobile device, choose Settings, then choose Change my handle. Click I have my own domain, and it'll show you the contents of a new TXT record to add to your DNS provider. Do as follows and then enjoy the promise that you are at least as valid as your domain.

And, no, before you ask: I do not (yet) have any Bluesky invite codes I can give you!