Instagram threads, what’s the whole idea?
Meta are no strangers to assimilating features of popular social media services while adding their own spins to their own apps, from the 2016 introduction of Snapchat style ‘stories’ or the 2020 introduction of the Tiktok-esque Instagram ‘reels’, and finally, to complete the trifecta of ‘inspiration’ from social media titans comes the new ‘Meta Threads’, with Twitter owner Elon Musk now threatening legal action here’s the low-down on Threads.
First, what started this whole debacle?
Meta threads had been in the pipeline since early March, well at least to the public’s understanding, when the idea was formally announced by Meta, Twitter services were under rather a lot of fire, this was the wake of Musk announcing a ‘view limit’ to tweets of:
- 300 for new unverified users,
- 600 for established but unverified users and
- 6,000 for verified users.
This was passed in hopes of preventing ‘data scraping & system manipulation’ with a splash of ‘awaking from a trance and stepping away from the phone to see your friends and family’ (@elonmusk on Twitter). But users were quick to argue this a ploy to increase rates of verification (the only way to view more tweets) which comes with a £90 per annum price tag! It’s no secret that Twitter has seen diminished profits with Musk being rather transparent about the bloated $44 billion price he paid for the application being inflated above its true valuation, profits must, after all, be clawed back somehow.
The announcement of ‘Threads’ Meta saw 30 million users sign-up in several hours, no wonder with a price tag of…£0.00 per annum!
The app is currently rated:
- #1 for ‘social networking’ in the Apple play store,
- #1 for ‘Top free’ apps on the Google play store.
So, what is threads?
Fundamentally it’s a mix of both Instagram and Twitter, it’s more so about public discussions and commentary on current affairs, as opposed to the Visio-Centric nature of Instagram. The area of deviation from Twitter is of course that there are no limits on content consumption, which may just be the smoking gun in the assassination of Twitter once and for all.
The ‘Blue Bird’ has fought off many a challenger in the past, but with Meta endorsement, this may not hold true, the app was officially released in 100 nations on July 5th 2023 – although note, those who live in the EU will not be able to download threads due to regulatory standards, one could argue this perhaps the last leg for Twitter to stand on, the barrier to the proposed oncoming purge, with Meta at the ships helm and Musk in its sights.
At Silvertoad we pride ourselves on being ahead of the game so it’s only right that we set up a threads account, if you want to keep up to date on the latest issues, commentary and discussions give us a follow @silvertoadltd, if you’re a fan of the traditional service, don’t worry, you can follow us on Twitter too @silvertoadltd!