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Threads, an Instagram app

apps.apple.com

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Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#781

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".

> People use Twitter because of its free speech rules

Perhaps a tiny minority of 1st Amendment weirdos in America, but outside of them nobody else cares. Normal people just want to follow Kim Kardashian.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#782
post #525

When was the last time, Facebook launched a successful standalone product? - WhatsApp - acqusition - Instagram - acquistion - Messenger - acquisition - Oculus - acquisition Facebook has DNA to optimize feeds. It, simply, lack the DNA to build good products from scratch. My gut feeling no one will care about Threads, 6 months from now. EDIT: - Facebook was all-in on cryptocurrencies. The project is fully gone. - Faceb…

Threads isn't even a new app from them. It was discontinued just a few years ago. This is a relaunch with a more Twitter like experience.

It is a new app, it's just reusing a previous brand name, it has nothing to do with the previous app.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any sign Meta understands what made Twitter great I mean, it's extremely clear that current Twitter leadership doesn't understand that either. They're not competing with Twitter at its prime (or at least its peak influence; personally I preferred it when it was a lot smaller in the early 10s) from a few years ago; they're competing with a website that just went completely dark to the public internet and…

Twitter is monetized outrage. A lot had to fall into place for that to work. Of course they need a working website, but beyond that I believe they are way sticker than pundits claim. That unique combination of echo chamber plus the ability to reach across and mock, abuse, or become enraged by the other side, all while having a community, is not easily replicable.

> is not easily replicable

What makes you think so? Twitter has no moat, the functionality is easy to replicate. It's all about the user base.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#785
post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta does not have the support of legislators. The EU would regulate any service that would even aspire to become a Western WeChat way before they have any chance to succeed.

Doesnt EU already have somewhat of a WeChat, everybody uses whatsapp there. Definitely Meta already won that market.

The problem with wechat is not use, its how its embedded everywhere.

Being able to do payments without a bank through whatsapp is way beyond the risk appetitte of european regulators for example.

Plus forcing whatsapp to add e2e encryption already fixes most of the issues in terms of risk to privacy regardless of how big the userbase it.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#786

Anyone interested in talking about the product decisions instead of Musk/Zuck hate? - Interesting that they went with a stand-alone app instead of baking this into IG like they did with Stories (which killed Snap overnight). I wonder how much they’ll advertise the download inside of IG. - Can’t say I like the name. Doesn’t evoke much emotion in me. The term “thread” is rarely used by normies without the word “Twitter…

I like the logo, a twisty line or thread forming an @atsign, which brings to my video game mind Rogue and Nethack :)

Not a bad name, but the “th” in Threads can be problematic to pronounce in other languages.

Good to have competition in this space.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#787

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 sign Meta understands what made Twitter great I mean, it's extremely clear that current Twitter leadership doesn't understand that either. They're not competing with Twitter at its prime (or at least its peak influence; personally I preferred it when it was a lot smaller in the early 10s) from a few years ago; they're competing with a website that just went completely dark to the public internet and…

I haven’t had any problem using Twitter recently (hardly “barely usable”). They had a technical hiccup that affected some users, but meh, Reddit serves 5XXs for up to an hour a couple of times a month and people don’t hyperventilate about its impending doom. The thing about social networks is that it doesn’t matter much if Twitter isn’t as great as it was in the early 10s, it still has the users and it’s obscenely difficult to pull users away en masse. Threads can probably carve out a big enough swatch to justify its own existence, but whether those users come from Twitter or other Meta properties (cannibalism) remains TBD and in any case I don’t think it will take enough users from Twitter to sink the latter. All of the doomsday prophesy about Twitter feels a lot like motivated reasoning, much like the smug certainty of the media running up to the 2016 election (and I say this as a someone with a “Trump for Prison 2024” yard sign). I’ve been hearing the same people saying (mostly on Twitter) for many months that it’s a sinking ship and they’re leaving and I’m still waiting for the big exodus.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#788
post #595

Oh, wait, this feels like the start of a cyberpunk story. If TikTok gets banned, where to the users go? Instagram. Threads could replace Twitter. Reddit is going downhill... Maybe Meta could even buy it in a firesale? Outside of chat apps like Discord, Slack, Teams and Telegram (which compete with WhatsApp), Meta will have consolidated most of the world's social media under them. And that's assuming they dont buy out…

> Reddit is going downhill... Maybe Meta could even buy it in a firesale? The problem is Reddit has very little real value, and to get that value you'd have to go even further into pushing its users away from the platform as you'd need to be able to target and identify individuals. Unlike Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc the majority of Reddit is very intentionally anonymous, not even requiring an email address. A si…

> The problem is Reddit has very little real value

I think the fact that users already go looking for a specific thing at a specific subreddit makes the value instantly apparent.

Being able to target users with an interest in your niche is infinitely valuable. Personalised ads are the entire business model of google and facebook to behemoths.

The problem is reddit is led by the most unqualified management of any top 10 most visited world site and they spent 2 quarters developing NFT profile pictures instead of mod tools, or advertiser platforms.

Having non intrusive ads, with good quality, that directly relate to what you care about? Is a dream of users and brands. Have an AMA with a movie start or a videogame developer and have them pay for it as marketing, or allow a weekly "share your news" from brands where they can talk new products, or versions of their thing.

There are a million ways to monetise reddit, in ways that the community would not be angry. But making it look like tiktok, forcing a terrible app, spending billions hosting your own images and video, and having mods do free labour for you while you fight to get any money in... is not the best way to go about it.

Re: Threads, an Instagram app

#790

When was the last time, Facebook launched a successful standalone product? - WhatsApp - acqusition - Instagram - acquistion - Messenger - acquisition - Oculus - acquisition Facebook has DNA to optimize feeds. It, simply, lack the DNA to build good products from scratch. My gut feeling no one will care about Threads, 6 months from now. EDIT: - Facebook was all-in on cryptocurrencies. The project is fully gone. - Faceb…

Facebook should make a LinkedIn copy. LI has taken the majority of the feed eyeball time. LI must have more DAU/MAU than Twitter - most people are just scrolling the LI feed, adding random people to their network (better than adding "friends" on FB), posting/re-sharing longer text+image content.

I'm not the target audience for either, but how is your LinkedIn feed even remotely similar to Facebook? On Facebook I see what my grandmother does, on LinkedIn I see female recruiters posting pictures of themselves with some text about some position they're recruiting for, or how to leverage AI from the same people people who used to push growth-hacking. Completely useless as social media.
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