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Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

threads.net

101–110 of 356 posts

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#101
post #7

That feels oddly low. It was released at 5ish PM PST on a Wednesday, and considering they have literally all of Instagram + Facebook's userbase to push it on, it seems pretty low. The "sign up" was also just a "log in with FB/Instagram" button where the form was already auto-filled. So it's not like people had to convert, it's pretty much about as pure a product-market-fit test you can get. Discoverability is also pr…

Marketers and influencers have a lot of pull, though. Journalists might follow if that's where the money is. When the journalists leave Twitter, it's over. Though personally I think Twitter was done once they got rid of verification.

[dead]

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#102
post #87

I'm very skeptical that this will succeed. As with other extremely hyped social medias (anyone remember Clubhouse?) it's already filled with influencers and e-celebs trying to get in early, but these people always poison the well with insincere, low-quality, monetization-oriented content. AFAIK, every successful social media platform grew more or less organically and only had these folks latch on later (usually causi…

Clubhouse is a bad example as it was the result of entirely unintentional luck due to the pandemic creating a perfect audience. No one outside of a16z thought it had staying power.

In Threads's case, there's some luck with Elon burning Twitter down, but atleast this launch is intentional.

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#103

Let's see, FB has about 2 billion daily actives, Insta has like 3 to 4 billion? Assume half of them are sleeping there should still be a couple billion Meta user online about now and only 2 million of them so far have downloaded it? We got 8 million downloads (not updates, full downloads) in one day back in the desktop era when there were only a couple billion people online in total. This feels pretty weak to me. I w…

Are there large banners or advertisements on Instagram or Facebook pushing people to use Threads? (I’m on neither.) A few more things that might affect signup numbers: Threads requires an app to use, and it’s not available in the EU yet. Also the announced go-live was tomorrow.

It doesn’t require an app to check it out. I clicked on the HN link and was able to navigate through the web app.

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#105

I'm amazed that people are willing to give facebook another try. Facebook filled our lives with rage-bait. (Not even going to touch the elections manip) They took over instagram and removed the time based sorting with their algorithm. So fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, you can't get fooled again.

Anything is better than twitter at this point.

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#106
post #50
post #7

That feels oddly low. It was released at 5ish PM PST on a Wednesday, and considering they have literally all of Instagram + Facebook's userbase to push it on, it seems pretty low. The "sign up" was also just a "log in with FB/Instagram" button where the form was already auto-filled. So it's not like people had to convert, it's pretty much about as pure a product-market-fit test you can get. Discoverability is also pr…

Lots of room for improvement like no multi account support, as you mentioned discoverability, and feed options. I downloaded it directly from the App Store because I’ve heard about it through external channels. Are they somehow notifying users to check Threads via their other apps (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp)?

> Are they somehow notifying users to check Threads via their other apps (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp)?

Yep, at least on Instagram, there's a "follow me on Threads" sticker you can add to your stories. (I rarely check FB these days, but there's probably something on there too.)

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they have meaningful verification (apparently), while Twitter doesn't.

> Yes, but they have meaningful verification (apparently), while Twitter doesn't. Depends on what you mean by "meaningful". Threads uses Instagram's verification, which, like Twitter's, is now pay-to-play[0]. [0] https://about.fb.com/news/2023/02/testing-meta-verified-to-h...

IG verification still requires validating your government ID matching your account name/bio, no? Twitter is just "do you have a working credit card #"?

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#109
post #98
post #87

I'm very skeptical that this will succeed. As with other extremely hyped social medias (anyone remember Clubhouse?) it's already filled with influencers and e-celebs trying to get in early, but these people always poison the well with insincere, low-quality, monetization-oriented content. AFAIK, every successful social media platform grew more or less organically and only had these folks latch on later (usually causi…

I’m amazed they didn’t provide a feed of only people you follow. Not doing so made the garbage influencer stuff inevitable.

Showing you more content you're not interested in is how they get you to scroll past more ads, it's how they make money.

Traditionally they don't need to care about showing you good content to keep you interested, you're generally logging in anyway.

The proof is in the pudding: if you want a curated feed go to Tumblr or Mastodon. These spaces exist yet they're significantly less mainstream.

Re: Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours

#110
I wish it were a standalone app. Not interested in linking something else to Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp.

Come to think of it, Meta is building the everything app. They have all the components. I think Elon won’t have any success with his X / everything app.

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