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Threads, an Instagram app

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271–280 of 1001 posts

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#271

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

I couldn't disagree more. I don't see any sign Meta understands what made Twitter great, and the fact that they're heavily branding it with Instagram, using Instagram logins etc suggests to me that they're just looking for another angle to vacuum up user data. Maybe I'm unusual but the accounts I follow on Instagram and Twitter do not have a huge amount of crossover so the fact that their onboarding process tries to…

> I don't see any sign Meta understands what made Twitter great

To be fair, I don’t think I’ve seen much sign that Twitter understands what made Twitter great, either.

(both before and after Musk)

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#272

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

You are 1000% right. Facebook’s value prop since instagram started doing stories has been ripping off successful social media apps. Snapchat but it’s done in instagram. TikTok but it’s done (less well) in instagram. Twitter paved over their moat, and their lunch is going to be eaten by this.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#273

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

I couldn't disagree more. I don't see any sign Meta understands what made Twitter great, and the fact that they're heavily branding it with Instagram, using Instagram logins etc suggests to me that they're just looking for another angle to vacuum up user data. Maybe I'm unusual but the accounts I follow on Instagram and Twitter do not have a huge amount of crossover so the fact that their onboarding process tries to…

I don't see any evidence Musk understands what made Twitter great, either.

At this point, someone just needs to stand up a Twitter clone that can handle the traffic because I think most regular Twitter users are having a much worse experience on there now -- from my own anecdotal experience as a semi-heavy twitter user.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#274
post #189

Wait, where is the web version? A big part of twitter is the web client... and embedded tweets all over the internet. Did they start this product by cloning instagram and removing the image centric approach? Why is this not a website first? My gut feel is that this competes as much with instagram as it does with Twitter.

Instagram has a web version, and the ability to HTML embed instagram posts, so it seems likely that this will have a web version.

>Instagram has a web version

The web version is downright awful. Maybe given this is a greenfield project, it won't meet the same fate... but yea. The "web version" of instagram is basically here's a 4x scaled version of the app without much regard to a desktop UI/UX.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#275

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

Agreed. When Instagram added stories, my entire Snapchat friendlist disappeared within a month and they were all posting to Instagram instead. I think the same will happen here. But it will be lopsided toward people who are already more popular on Instagram than they are on Twitter, which is a lot of social/non-professional audiences. I expect that Twitter accounts with large followings will continue posting there, a…

I do wonder how much stickiness Twitter has for professional niche communities. Don't they also enjoy shitposting? Isn't what makes it kinda work -- the interconnectedness of the platform?

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. I don't see any sign Meta understands what made Twitter great, and the fact that they're heavily branding it with Instagram, using Instagram logins etc suggests to me that they're just looking for another angle to vacuum up user data. Maybe I'm unusual but the accounts I follow on Instagram and Twitter do not have a huge amount of crossover so the fact that their onboarding process tries to…

I don't see any evidence Musk understands what made Twitter great, either. At this point, someone just needs to stand up a Twitter clone that can handle the traffic because I think most regular Twitter users are having a much worse experience on there now -- from my own anecdotal experience as a semi-heavy twitter user.

> I don't see any evidence Musk understands what made Twitter great, either.

Oh, I totally agree. I just don't think that means Meta will win here.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#277
post #7

As a Mastodon/Fediverse user, I hope the rumors that this is based on ActivityPub are true. I'd love for there to be an easy-to-use interface for everyone that brings more people and content into the Fediverse.

I've been pretty happy with Elk.zone on the web and Ivory on iOS. Both are sleek and usable, as much as any commercial app.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are bootstrapping new social networks by mass-scraping Twitter data I am 99% sure that this is not a real thing and that you're using all of these words incorrectly. When was Substack illegally scraping Twitter data? What Twitter data is being used to bootstrap Threads?

> When was Substack illegally scraping Twitter data? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644638493883211779 > What Twitter data is being used to bootstrap Threads? I have no proof of this. It's just speculation. I also don't have an iDevice so I can't install the app and look for myself. But the timing of Twitter's rate limiting this week, combined with Elon's clarification that Twitter data is being mass-scraped, c…

Friend, I am a fan of, and highly recommend use your critical thinking skills to evaluate statements that others make before parroting them. I don't repeat things that make no sense on their face, like "Substack is scraping Twitter" or "Threads is bootstrapping off Twitter data".

Like, what would that even mean? Do you really think Meta is going to launch a Twitter competitor and just wholesale impersonate accounts and their content? If not, what even are you implying?

(from the "proof" link where Elon was accusing Substack of scraping:)

>2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.

lol, reading that still makes me chuckle. I can't believe people eat his crap up even when the circumstances make it clear that he's backpeddaling and desperately trying to save face.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#279

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

Twitter will persist as long as Journalists stay on it, and everyone paying attention knows that, including Musk.

Journalists are not that critical to it. They actually get paid for contributing to other sites, some of which Musk has now banned like Substack, and they specifically don't get paid to tweet.

There are other large communities on Twitter. These include sports, semipro artists, the nation of Japan, people in politics, and a variety of assorted insane people and scammers like crypto, VCs and vaccine skeptics.

The reason it's failing is that the last group now owns the site.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#280

I'm calling it now, this is going to hollow out twitter in extremely rapid fashion. I give twitter a couple of months once this launches, they'll do a Wile E Coyote where they walk off the cliff, followed by plummeting. Meta is going to grind the blue bird to a fine powder, not saying this as a Meta fan, just a casual observer. There's massive pent-up demand for an alternative, and so far Bluesky and Mastodon haven't…

It won't. People use Twitter because of its free speech rules and this is very unlikely to give the same degree of freedom to the "conservatives".

Twitter doesn't have "free speech rules". There is no connection between something Elon said once and the actual moderation system. This is true even though he owns it.

(The mods seem to ban accounts that get enough reports without really reading them. If I report an account it does tend to get banned 3-4 months later even though they've already sent me an email saying they ignored my report.)

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