Did Meta, the biggest player in the space, seize the opportunity to create the next massive social media platform?
It’s not every day that a new social network comes out...especially one built by Meta which is sort of the king of all social networks. One of the big differences of this platform design includes a decentralized social media platform which means that, eventually, it is going to work with other social networks.
Decentralization
Image from Bigstock
It may be the fastest-growing social media app that we have ever seen. While hitting 100 million users in just a few days, Meta has unapologetically taken advantage of perceived weaknesses at Twitter. Threads has dominated the space recently. The Twitter-like platform provides a community for sharing in a kind, nice, polite-ish conversational-driven platform. The basic idea is to create a place where users can write sentences, share ideas, post photos, and have conversations on various popular topics with text and some forms of visual images.
Meta’s Threads is not trying to cancel Twitter or dispose of Twitter, yet the 1.0 version of this looks a heck of a lot like Twitter. The platform is reportedly built on Activity Pub, according to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, where he has been working for Instagram for years and is in charge of the Threads project. Meta for the first time in its history is doing something that they have never done before: letting the control go. (Eventually, you can even take your entire following off the platform to another if you don't like Threads!)
Unlike Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, Threads is going to be decentralized. Hard to overstate what a huge change that is for Meta. Meta hasn't been popular in the last two or three years. They have struggled with government scrutiny, customer service issues, and privacy issues. Congrats Meta, going all in!
Comparisons
Photo Credit: Reuters
I, like most, found Twitter in the 2000s and followed the news threads for daily quick headlines and updates. I like to see what is happening in pop culture, what's trending, and, of course, from time to time, the quick Kanye update. Twitter helped me understand what topics I wanted to write about during that day and what hot topics to share on live streams and panels I was speaking on. So when Twitter started to collapse in the last 6 months, I felt a bit of a void and was hoping that someone would come forward with a replacement and that day has arrived.
I'm sure I am not the only one flipping back and forth comparing Twitter and Threads, but I have noticed how easy it is to have all of your followers onboard to Threads from Instagram. The platform is super clean and easy to navigate, and how did they make the uploading so fast? It's awesome. Plus, music fanbases can now be migrated from Instagram with little effort AND the fanbases can also be moved off the Threads platform if requested, allowing for hard-earned followers to stay together—great news for Ratt Pack fans and others alike.
The breakdown between Twitter and Threads looks like this:
Threads
- Decentralized
- Aiming for kindness vibe
- Fanbase can be moved over from IG
- Fanbase can be moved off of Threads at any time
- Clean, simple looking
- No ads...yet
- Not available in some countries
- Implements fees
- Politics central
- Fanbase cannot be moved around
- Ad driven
- Globally available
- Fanbase cannot be moved...yet
Common Shared Features
- First letter the same "T"
- Text format of sharing with some images
- Order of commands similar
- Building conversations around short-form text
Threadheads
Image from Bigstock
It's exciting to join a platform where you are not starting from scratch with your threadheads as you can onboard your fans directly from IG. It's also fun to be part of a platform from the jump where, during the first few days of launch (after the soft testing by select influencers, companies, and celebrities), your posts end up in the main feed of Threads so virtually anyone can see the post...even massive influencers!
The first users were companies like Netflix telling a few jokes, Hollywood Reporter telling a few stories, and Mark Cuban, who was talking about what a nice community it is.
Beta Test
The platform seems to be focusing on the vibe, the cleanness of the platform, and keeping politics and news at a minimum with fun at a premium. Every new app is a risk and it's not easy, so let's check in with the top executive who has been creating Threads, namely Adam Mosseri.
Adam Mosseri, Head Of Instagram
Image from Bigstock
According to a podcast discussion on Hard Fork, a tech podcast hosted by journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, Adam talks about the challenges, goals, and hopes for Threads. There has been a tremendous amount of work in thought, tech, and production to create the platform where the demand from Instagram has developed a beautiful creator community. Threads appears to be aiming for thoughtful creator-type conversations around public topics. "More focused on the communities that use and love Instagram...you have to take some swings and we settled on this and we will see how it goes. The main tab is the feed, the next tab is search, the third tab is like Instagram, it's the composer...then your activity, and then your profile. The post and comment model is great but it really does not support public discord nearly as well as the tweet and reply model...elevating the reply to essentially the same level as the initial post allows for much more sort of robust discourse."
If you have not moved over to Threads, you should. It's a vibey place for creative, shared-thought conversations. I think you'll be surprised at how clean and easy the platform loads, supports posts, and is a flow of positive thought. Tell me your favorite Thread feature!
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