I just used AI to create a #Bluesky Audience Manager Application - Here's how I did it in 3 days.

Bluesky is experiencing exponential growth, with 25 million new users as of this writing. Positioned as an alternative to Twitter (X), it offers a different experience, though some features—particularly its UX capabilities and functionality—are less robust. For instance, when engaging with others on Bluesky, it’s crucial to determine if your followers are genuine or potentially have harmful intentions. This is a pressing issue on Twitter, where bots, trolls, and harassment have become rampant. Twitter's lack of enforcement on blocking harassers has fueled a massive exodus from the platform. While there used to be mobile apps that tracked recent followers and unfollowers, many were rendered ineffective due to recent restrictions on Twitter’s API.

My Coding Abilities

Although I’m not a full-time coder by trade, I’ve spent decades familiarizing myself with various programming languages like Perl, TCL, PHP, JavaScript, and ActionScript - you know where I'm going with this :-) While I can read and interpret code, I lack the patience for the finer details of coding, such as tracking down misplaced semicolons. My strengths lie in #UX/CX strategy and digital marketing, where I excel at breaking down complex problems and crafting solutions. Creating applications that serve humanity has been central to my career—my team even launched AOL Instant Messenger in 1997. However, I now need a full-stack developer to help bring my latest "solution" to the masses. Working in the Bolt.new environment changed that for me last week.

Bolt.New

#Bolt.new is actually a groundbreaking #AI platform for building applications without requiring coding knowledge. Hosted on Stackblitz, Bolt features a visual interface combined with a chat prompt. It’s comparable to Claude.ai but it is also being marketed as a Cursor.ai “killer” (though, admittedly, everything in the AI space is now being labeled a “killer” of something else). The rapid evolution of AI—where AI tools are used to build even more AI—is astonishing. Unlike Claude, Bolt constructs your application for you and deploys it live using Netlify as the hosting platform. So you can immediately test and use it.

As someone who’s typically skeptical about software ease-of-use claims, I was impressed with Bolt’s intuitive and enjoyable interface. Impressed so much, that I was motivated to write a LinkedIn article about it.

Here’s how my experience unfolded.

The Process: Building a Bluesky Follower Management App

I started with the following prompt:

"Please create a web application that will show members that follow me and that I follow. Please make sure the login is private and that no secure data is stored from a Bluesky login. Make the interface contemporary and mimic the color scheme and layout components from Bluesky."

Within seconds, Bolt began breaking down my request, identifying the appropriate tech stack, and suggesting refinements to my prompt. It then generated the project directory structure and dependencies in the terminal window, explaining each feature it was building and, in some cases, why.

Bolt includes a live preview (sandbox) area where you can see the application’s output in real-time. If you dislike the design, you are able to upload an image and instruct Bolt to adjust the interface accordingly. The experience felt akin to working with a coder capable of translating complex tech jargon into actionable steps and then displaying a working model with each iteration.

Key Features and Development Highlights

• #API Integration and Security: For my app, Bolt accessed the Bluesky API to allow users to log in securely. It proposed using Zustand, a state management library for React, to handle data locally rather than on a server, ensuring user credentials weren’t stored externally.
• Error Handling: If errors arose (e.g., API access issues), I could simply screenshot the error and paste it into the chat. Bolt would either troubleshoot the issue or suggest workarounds. Impressively, Bolt also detected its own errors and presented fixes for approval.
• User Interface and Features: After a few hours, I had a fully functioning web application. It allowed Bluesky users to log in using their email/handle and password.

The app displayed:

A tab showing follower count,

Follower details (with user profiles and bios in a grid view),

Options to mute or block users.

Buttons to identify recent followers and users who have unfollowed.

MVP and Prototyping

Within a few hours I had a fully functioning web application hosted at #Netlify and it was working as expected (programmed). I then started to have Bolt create additional content pages like About, Privacy Policy -where I could provide security information, Join Beta (for testing), and a FAQ page. All with just prompts in Bolt with the prewritten content and then immediately deployed to Netlify.

Bolt is ideal for creating a Minimal Viable Product as well as prototyping. I've used it to create Native apps, Websites, and even Chrome Extensions. The interface is fundamental and easy to use and engage with. It did have some issues with file structures and dependencies at times, and when it was time for me to brand my app with its new name "Skyminder" I had to upload the logo somewhere on the web and then have Bolt reference it and drop it into the folder structure. It's not handling images from the chat prompt, but it does include them if you provide a URL to the asset.

One of the most fascinating attributes of this platform was that when I got an error launching a project, I could screengrab the error, a bitmap, and then paste it into the chat. Bolt would read from the image and understand what to do next. At no point did it come back with "I can't perform that task" or ask me to download Python, TypeScript, or any other programming executable on my system. You can also tell it which flavor of coding you'd like for it to utilize as well. I recently attempted to use "WindSurf" which is a competitor to Bolt and its environment seemed incomplete, even though the manic YouTube coder personalities (compensated influencers?) are already proclaiming that it's a "Bolt Killer" after just recently launching.

What about that branding?

One of my favorite things to do with products is give them a life, an identity. I have created thousands of branded graphics for some very recognizable brands during my career.

My Bluesky Audience Management app needed a name. I figured that since I'm already in AI land, I thought I'd use "artificial intelligence" to come up with a name and branding identity. That's where Namelix.com comes in - an AI business name tool by Brandmark.io.

I simply typed in what I wanted, a unique name that considers the ability to manage Bluesky followers and some audience targeting information. Many results came back and I settled on Skyminder. Since Namelix is already a part of Brandmark, it started to generate different visual representations of the logo. Interestingly enough, I landed on a design that was reminiscent of many other digital brands that I helped to design. So, I felt a bit more like it was my design.

To my surprise, Brandmark pumped out all kinds of print and digital-ready versions of the logo along with a complete branding style guide. It's been a long time since I've taught how to create branding style guides, so this was the icing on the cake for me.

All of this happened in 3 days.

Are Programmers Doomed? Am I Cheating?

This is a difficult one. We're not quite there yet, but this level of automation is undoubtedly the start of an enormous paradigm shift. As far as cheating, it's another tool we humans have created to make things simpler/faster. AI is evolving along with us right now. It's not going away. The abilities it gives us help to augment our imagination. We can use these tools to solve problems from personal observations within specific niches that we focus on.

To put things into perspective for mass communication projects, I go back as far as the Eagle AVL, Photography, and Rubylith to create animated infographic slide presentations during the late 80s. Then along came PCs and PowerPoint. Was PowerPoint cheating? It replaced the slide and overhead projector. Eagle went into the PC business and then fizzled.

People are already exclaiming at how this is all happening at break-neck speed. As I have recently witnessed, you can create applications with AI that incorporate other AI for features, content, and data. We will still need coders to QA/QC the code and build larger-scale applications. For example, I didn't build that BMW 430i, but I know how to replace the tires, battery, and oil. I'll leave the building up to Munich.

I think that one of the most impactful attributes of working with AI to do programming is that some are actually teaching you along the way. It's interactive, it's informative, and it tells you "WHY" you are doing something a specific way. If it makes a mistake, it tells you what went wrong and the reasoning for using a different stack of tools and code.

If you're like me and how I learn, I tend to get clarity on an entire process once I see something functioning, and given my experience in coding and UX, I can fathom re-engineering it in my mind. Which, in turn, gives me more ideas on engineering additional solutions.

After using Bolt.new, I'm extremely amped up about creating additional software-related solutions.

Please reach out to me for guidance and direction with these tools and how to identify needs that are going unresolved in your market.

Hashtags:

#ArtificialIntelligence #NoCode #AIDevelopment #WebDevelopment #TechInnovation #BlueskySocial #BoltNew #Netlify #Stackblitz #BlueskyAPI #FollowerManagement #UXDesign #CXStrategy #AppDevelopment #FullStackDevelopment #DigitalMarketing