What do TikTok, Mark Cuban and Bluesky have in common? Skylight.

When the future of TikTok was thrown into question in January 19, 2025, Skylight CEO Tori White and her co-founder/CTO Reed Harmeyer saw a moment and seized on it.

But they took a new approach, one that puts creators in charge of their content, their audience relationships, and their reach. Giving creators all of the control and fun, and none of the uncertainty, fuels Tori’s mission.

Today, Skylight is a great example of the open social at work, bringing videos from across the AT protocol community into a single experience people can enjoy.

The conversation includes:

• Skylight’s origin story
• Making the case to creators to join the social web
• Benefits of ecosystem collaboration, like live-streaming and feeds
• Social web tipping point
• Monetization models
• What’s next for Skylight
• Financial sustainability, decentralizing resources

Mentioned in this episode:

🔎 You can find Tori at @buildwithtori https://www.buildwithtori.com/

✚ Connect with host Mike McCue at @mike@flipboard.social and @mmccue.bsky.social.

🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the open social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new product from the people at Flipboard. https://about.surf.social/

Why Open Social Matters for Creators, with Skylight’s Tori White