Bluesky tracking enhancement: attention from image alt text

1. What's new?

On 3 December 2024, we launched the newest attention source on Altmetric: Bluesky.

We are now working to enhance the Bluesky content we can track and bring to our users (see section 4 below for a summary). Earlier this week, we started with the ability to track attention from posts with embedded links.

Our newest enhancement, live now, is the ability to track mentions included in the alt text of images.

2. What is alt text on Bluesky?

Alt text (or alternative text) is a brief description of an image or other visual content that is read aloud by screen readers and other assistive technology. It is an important part of making digital content accessible to people with visual impairments, learning disabilities, or certain sensory processing differences.

Through speaking with our users, we learned that researchers posting on Bluesky may be using alt text to add links to research outputs, rather than including the links in the body of their posts.

For example, the body of the post in the screenshot below does not include a DOI, or any other URL linking to a research output: it only includes an image. The ALT icon on the bottom right of the photo in the post signals that the user added alt text to the image.

When clicking on the ALT icon at the bottom right of the image, it's possible to see that the image includes alt text (see the section with white text on black background at the bottom of the screenshot), and that the alt text has the link to a research output.

3. Value and user impact

Tracking Bluesky attention in Altmetric enables users to capture more research conversations on a platform the community continues to demonstrate a strong interest in. By capturing mentions included in alt text, we can continue to ensure that we are covering as many as possible of the ways research output mentions can occur in Bluesky conversations.

We are now able to track mentions from the alt text of posts with images we have collected from 12 December 2024 onwards. At the time of writing, we are tracking a total of 533,671 mentions from 519,626 individual Bluesky posts.

4. What Bluesky posts can Altmetric track right now?

At the time of writing (13 December 2024), we are tracking:

• Original posts and replies collected since 24 October 2024

• Reposts collected since 5 November 2024

• Quote posts collected since 13 November 2024

• Mentions from posts with embedded links collected since 9 December 2024

• Mentions from posts including images with alt text collected since 12 December 2024
  

In addition, we are working to add the features below as post-launch iterations. We will share separate release notes when they are live.

• Cohort data from user profiles

• Posts published before the dates detailed above (we are working on an improvement that will allow us to track more content from pre-launch dates)
  

Due to technical limitations, please note we won’t be able to track:

• Mentions from links created using link shorteners

• Likes

• Follower count updates in real time

• User profile location data

Please contact the Altmetric Support team for any further questions, we'll be happy to help!