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How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

engineering.fb.com

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Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#101

Post by kevincox »

bigtechdigest wrote: post #99

I think the goal here is to build a free data harvesting machine for building LLMs. (and also a shameless plug: I featured this article in my last newsletter https://bigtechdigest.substack.com/p/most-read-tech-articles... )

I think you are looking too hard for a secret purpose. I think they just want to keep making bets on controlling the social network space. They see Twitter failing and it seems like a great time to try and snag the market. They use ActivityPub as a selling point and Instagram users as an existing network and hope to replace Twitter. Instagram still seems pretty popular but they are clearly missing some part of the market with a text-based network so they are both expanding and diversifying. Facebook is already circling the drain (although it will probably be circling that drain for a decade) and they don't know if Instagram will continue to be popular.

I'm sure harvesting data for LLMs is a great side benefit, but if that was their main goal they would probably just run a crawler. They could even crawl ActivityPub without having their own instance if they wanted. It is a public API. They would just miss out on private posts which is probably a small fraction.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#102

Post by CharlesW »

brightball wrote: post #94
itslennysfault wrote: post #83

I'm kinda loving the obvious "X" shills in the comments coming just to declare Threads dead. It is literally the 2nd most downloaded app in the AppStore (was #1 for a bit, but Temu is seemingly unstoppable). Personally, it has become my preferred social media platform. It's overflowing with content and I check in on it several times a day, and have been really enjoying the community that is emerging. It DOES however…

I had some experience with this after setting up social media accounts for a conference that I took over in March. LinkedIn is beating them all, significantly. Instagram is next, which surprised me all little. After that it was X and then finally YouTube, which didn't have any content until September so it will likely/hopefully overtake some soon. Threads AND Facebook have been kinda terrible. We just shuttered the T…

> LinkedIn is beating them all, significantly.

Seems like your metric is "follows for the sake of follows", which is a vanity metric that's easily gamed. What conversion actions are you measuring, and how are they doing?

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#103

Post by robertlagrant »

lapcat wrote: post #65
adra wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that you signed up through a VPN, and this is an anti-bot automated system. I'm not a meta employee, just speculating. Remember, VPNs are the collective abuse of all of their users, not just you; same with public access networks.

> My guess is that you signed up through a VPN Your guess is wrong. I don't use any VPN. Why is everyone trying to find reasons to blame the victims?

> Why is everyone trying to find reasons to blame the victims?

Victims of what?

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#104

Post by aschobel »

What do folks use for something like Meta’s Async? RabbitMQ?

> The workloads commonly executed on Async are those that do not require blocking an active user’s experience with a product and can be performed anywhere from a few seconds to several hours after a user’s action.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#105

Post by erulabs »

neon_electro wrote: post #90
erulabs wrote: post #88

Gotta love how far MySQL + k/v store can get ya. I have no experience with zippyDB, but MySQL and ScyllaDB certainly feels like having an M1 Abrams and a B2 Spirit in my back pocket. I’m constantly pushing the “relationships from MySQL, data from Cassandra” narrative. It sounds like Facebook has a similar approach - although this post doesn’t make it clear where message data actually resides. MySQL, ScyllaDB, and Rab…

Can you share your take on why MySQL and not Postgres?

For me it's mostly about known-knowns. I've been responsible for pretty large/company-critical MySQL clusters and have managed to sleep soundly at night. I tend to be the "database guy" at every startup, and those startups tended to use MySQL.

I have to say, I do love PostGIS. But for "this data absolutely cannot be lost or its game-over", I'd go MySQL every time. I can and have debugged MySQL replication on zero hours of sleep. It's entirely possible Postgres 16 is the better choice for new projects today, but I haven't had the time to try it out in production yet.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#106

Post by cbeach »

modeless wrote: post #95
itslennysfault wrote: post #83

I'm kinda loving the obvious "X" shills in the comments coming just to declare Threads dead. It is literally the 2nd most downloaded app in the AppStore (was #1 for a bit, but Temu is seemingly unstoppable). Personally, it has become my preferred social media platform. It's overflowing with content and I check in on it several times a day, and have been really enjoying the community that is emerging. It DOES however…

My threads feed started OK at launch but now is a wasteland of pointless rage bait and r/antiwork style content. I'm sure it's popular but it's not what I want to read. On X I get mostly informative ML and robotics content. Of course it took some curation and liberal use of the "Mute Words" feature to get there. But I just don't think that content is there on Threads. My go-to example of why I don't like what's happe…

Too much anti-X (anti-Musk) trolling on Threads. Threads users really need to focus on building something good themselves, rather than simply attacking the incumbent.

It feels like the whole purpose of Threads is just one-upmanship against Elon Musk, and as such, it's just a hollow shell of a community.

Pointless rage-bait Threads content regularly comes up on Instagram and I find it a turn-off for the new social network.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#107

Post by brightball »

CharlesW wrote: post #102
brightball wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had some experience with this after setting up social media accounts for a conference that I took over in March. LinkedIn is beating them all, significantly. Instagram is next, which surprised me all little. After that it was X and then finally YouTube, which didn't have any content until September so it will likely/hopefully overtake some soon. Threads AND Facebook have been kinda terrible. We just shuttered the T…

> LinkedIn is beating them all, significantly. Seems like your metric is "follows for the sake of follows", which is a vanity metric that's easily gamed. What conversion actions are you measuring, and how are they doing?

As somebody who’s learning social media, followers and my own perceptions are pretty much all I’m measuring. If there’s a way to game follower count, it’s happening without me doing anything to game it.

Engagement is best on our email list, which is nearly parallel with LinkedIn and we’ve got a 40% open rate there.

These numbers are essentially from setting up our Substack and broadcasting the posts out to various different platforms.

As somebody with no idea what they are doing and limited time, what should I be measuring?

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#109

Post by the_gipsy »

modeless wrote: post #95
itslennysfault wrote: post #83

I'm kinda loving the obvious "X" shills in the comments coming just to declare Threads dead. It is literally the 2nd most downloaded app in the AppStore (was #1 for a bit, but Temu is seemingly unstoppable). Personally, it has become my preferred social media platform. It's overflowing with content and I check in on it several times a day, and have been really enjoying the community that is emerging. It DOES however…

My threads feed started OK at launch but now is a wasteland of pointless rage bait and r/antiwork style content. I'm sure it's popular but it's not what I want to read. On X I get mostly informative ML and robotics content. Of course it took some curation and liberal use of the "Mute Words" feature to get there. But I just don't think that content is there on Threads. My go-to example of why I don't like what's happe…

Isn't the same true for twitter nowadays?

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#110

Post by leosanchez »

margorczynski wrote: post #108

I will not touch anything Meta/Zuckerberg related with a 10 foot pole, and I would advise anyone to do the same. FB and Instagram are giant drivers of depression and bitterness, they shouldn't be supported financially or otherwise.

Agree. I still don't have an instagram account even though everyone around me keeps sharing instagram videos.
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