Meta-owned Instagram has launched a new app called Threads as a direct competition against Twitter. The newly released Threads is now available to users in over 100 countries.
Threads stand to have an instant 1.386 billion number of users – the popularity of Instagram, because new users can sign up from an existing Instagram account, and easily import their profile to it.
10 million users signed up hours after the launch of Threads on Wednesday, a day before its scheduled release.
Amongst its new users are celebrities which include; Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Gordon Ramsay, Tom Brady and Coldplay.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made was could be seen as an advertisement on Twitter, his first tweet, in almost a decade, sharing a popular Spider-Man meme in what seemed to be his acknowledgment that Thread was basically a Twitter copy.
However, many did not seem to like Mark’s new Thread, as evident in the comment section of his tweet. Some berated him for copying Twitter, others said Zuckerberg’s other platforms – Instagram and Facebook did not provide for free speech.
Another shared user feedback which had some reported complaints on the newly launched Threads and its feeds algorithm.
“But there’s no way to make Threads show you only the posts from accounts you’ve chosen to follow. There’s also no way to make your feed ordered chronologically instead, it’s organized by what the Threads algorithm thinks you might find most interesting.”
The thread app opens up to a scrollable feed of short-form text limited to 500 characters a post, with the ability to add individual or carousel photos and videos.
The posts that users get to see in their feed will include content from accounts they follow, as well as content suggested by the platform’s recommendation algorithm. Viewers can engage by liking, commenting, reposting — including quoting a post — and sharing to their Instagram story or feed.
Though most Thread features are like Twitter, its user interface design resembles Instagram’s, with the same heart, comment, and share buttons and similarly placed tabs.
Unlike Twitter, Threads does not have an online web version yet. It does not also have a message functionality too. Threads does not also show what is trending or make use of #hashtags, unlike Twitter.
Meta’s Threads joins a list of platforms such as Bluesky, Spillwhich, and Mastodon, seeking to challenge Twitter’s dominance in the microblogging space.
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