In July, the new social network Instagram Threads, the main competitor of Twitter, was launched. Within the first 7 hours from the moment of opening, over 10 million users registered. The platform seduced many with its quick registration (literally 3 seconds), a comfortable limit on the size of a post, the absence of annoying advertising, and in such a short time managed to gain the status of a “Twitter killer.” From our article, you will learn what the new social network is, what opportunities it offers users and what is the secret of its rapidly growing popularity.
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What is Instagram Threads
Instagram Threads is a microblogging service developed by Meta. Externally and functionally, its feed is very reminiscent of Twitter, and the design of the accounts is similar to the “parent” Instagram. The basis of this social network is text content. Its primary purpose is to quickly exchange text messages, photos, and videos. At the moment, it represents a profitable alternative to Twitter and intends to become its main competitor.
Threads was first launched in October 2019. This application gave users the ability to exchange messages and video chat. Instagram stopped supporting it in December 2021. The 2023 version is significantly different from the previous one and has many new features and also contains some elements of the original application.
According to Meta, the Instagram Threads application is currently available in 100 countries in 31 languages. Those interested can download it to their device for free by visiting the App Store and Google Play.
Growing popularity
Within just a few hours of launch, Threads had 10 million registered users. By the end of the first day, their number reached 30 million, and after 5 days - 100 million.
On the first day of the launch of the new social network, its founder Mark Zuckerberg announced details of the rapid growth in the popularity of the application:
- in 2 hours – 2 million registrations;
- in 4 hours – 5 million registrations;
- in 7 hours – 10 million registrations.
By comparison, it took Facebook 852 days to reach 10 million users. Twitter was able to reach this figure in 780 days. The Threads network received the same amount in half a day.
Decentralized approach
Decentralization is a popular technological concept today, the essence of which is the absence of a single center of control and a single point of failure. A striking example of its implementation is the famous social network Mastodon.
Instagram Threads is the first Meta social network promoting the idea of decentralization. The company's official blog reports that Threads will soon become compatible with the decentralized ActivityPub protocol, which gives social networking applications the ability to fully interact with each other. The main condition is that they use this protocol. This means that a user's Threads posts can be seen and even commented on in other applications, such as Mastodon.
A Mastodon user can send a follow-up request to your Threads account. You will then be able to track content posted to Mastodon in your Threads. You don't even have to register with Mastodon to do this. If you suddenly decide to move from Threads to another social network, you can take all your content with you. This feature is not available at the moment, but when it becomes available it will be very interesting to see its use.
Regulatory issues
Coming close to the global launch of its new application, Meta ran into serious reputational and regulatory obstacles. According to Bloomberg, it cannot launch its social network Threads in the European Union due to regulatory problems associated with the recently adopted EU Digital Markets Act. However, Meta representatives claim that Europe is a strategically important market for them, so they will continue to consider the possibility of launching in European countries. Nuances of legislation prevent us from doing this right now.
Regarding security, Meta said that Threads users are provided with the same set of functions as Instagram. They can limit who is allowed to mention them in messages or respond to them. In addition, they have access to settings for hiding several offensive words in replies, unsubscribing, blocking, or limiting the rights of other accounts. As we can see, there are no problems with restrictive measures. But with reputation – yes. Facebook still has a stain on it - the vast Cambridge Analytica scandal that happened in 2018. Then the data of millions of users was collected without their knowledge or permission. After this, trust in Meta was undermined. Now she still has to prove that this will not happen again and that she respects confidentiality responsibly.
Threads Features
After downloading the Threads app from the App Store or Google Play, you can log in to the social network using your personal Instagram account. After this, you can automatically import your biography from there and duplicate your subscriptions. Today, over 2 billion people are registered on Instagram. Thus, you won’t have to recruit subscribers from scratch, as, for example, in Mastodon. This is one of the significant advantages of Threads, setting it apart from other Twitter alternatives.
The volume of one message is limited to 500 characters. This is, of course, much longer than the 280 characters Twitter suggests for free accounts, and is well within Mastodon's limit. You can attach an image, GIF file, and video up to 5 minutes to the text. One post can contain a maximum of 10 media elements.
Just like on Twitter, Threads users can create new topics for discussion. When a topic is created, its author decides who has the right to respond in the discussion thread: his subscribers, those he follows, or a limited number of tagged people. After this setup, the public conversation thread will contain only responses from a specific audience and will not have to be cleared of offensive comments from strangers, bots, and spammers.
Link to Instagram
Even though Threads and Instagram are different apps, they are very closely related. There is only one feed in Threads. Like Instagram, it is algorithmic: it contains posts from users you follow and those recommended by the system. A post from Threads can be published in your Instagram feed or story in just a couple of clicks. The account type can also be selected and set as public (public) or private (closed). Profiles that are verified on Instagram automatically become verified on Threads. This makes Threads convenient to use for business.
Other features shared with Instagram:
- Compliance with community rules. This includes allowing posts that are suitable for different audiences and prohibiting those containing “hate speech” (insults and humiliation). Meta aims for Threads to be a social oasis—a place for “productive, positive discussions.”
- Content filtering. Each user decides for himself who has the right to reply to him or mention his nickname in a message. In addition, here you can set up a special word filter - make a list of words that you would not like to see in messages or publications. After this, posts and messages containing “safe words” will not appear in the feed and reply threads. Like Instagram, Threads users can report content that violates the social network's rules for review and sanctions.
- Blocking users. Those whom the user has blocked on Instagram will remain on the blacklist and in Threads. You can edit this list through the Instagram application.
- "Break" function. It helps the user manage the time spent on the social network by limiting scrolling of the feed.
- Parental control. If you have already set up this feature through Meta Family Center, everything will be automatically duplicated in Threads.
To summarize, we note that the new social network borrowed web design, navigation, and some functions from Instagram. However, the main functionality was still taken from Twitter.
Difference from Twitter
The global difference between Threads and Twitter lies in the new microblogging service’s desire for decentralization. This approach is fundamentally different from Twitter's restriction of free access to the API for other developers.
Functionally, Threads is very similar to Twitter. The new social network implements precisely the same principle of creating text messages, attaching images and videos to them, subscribing to other users and company pages, commenting on posts, reposting, and so on.
The Threads developers decided not to transfer some functions from Twitter to their social network. Among them:
- "Spaces". Due to the lack of audio rooms, voice conferences will not be possible here.
- Pinning posts to your personal page.
- Add your favorite post to your bookmarks.
- Support for custom alt text for images.
- Ability to edit a published message.
- Built-in translation into other languages.
- Hashtag.
- Private messages.
- Full support for the web version.
One of the significant advantages of the new Meta product over Twitter is the size of its user base, which currently stands at 109 million. Mark Zuckerberg's company does not plan to stop there and aims to reach at least part of the 2.35 billion registered Instagram users with Threads. Twitter currently has only about 250 million active users.
Let's sum it up
Threads is a relatively simple application. It lacks many of the features that Twitter users value, such as the ability to write a personal message and edit a published post, and support for the desktop version. The rapid growth of its popularity is most likely due to the course towards decentralization, ease of registration, and close connection with Instagram. However, this does not mean that everything will remain the same. Meta management assured that they plan to further develop and improve Threads.
Perhaps soon users will be able to add hashtags and directly exchange private messages. In addition, it is expected that the search function and feed will be modernized, which will contain publications only of those to whom the user has subscribed.
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