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Amin Sansar | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Just sixteen hours after its launch, the Instagram text-based social network Threads has already surpassed 30 million subscriptions, meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg He said early Thursday. It was also the top free app in the Apple App Store as of Thursday morning.
The app is Meta’s answer to Twitter, which has seen some of its users and advertisers flee since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the social media platform. On Saturday, Twitter began limiting the number of posts users could read per day to address “extreme levels of data collection,” which only served to increase users’ frustration.
A number of Twitter alternatives have emerged in recent months, including decentralized messaging app Mastodon and Bluesky, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. But neither platform was able to match Twitter’s user base and popularity.
Topics may be easier to attract users. It is based on Instagram and is automatically linked to the user’s account on the photo-sharing app. Initially, users could only access the service through a circuitous route in the Instagram app. But as of Thursday, the app is available for download from Apple’s App Store, and it’s free to use.
How to use threads
Users must have an Instagram account in order to use the themes. Once you download the app, it will prompt you to sign in with your Instagram account. From there, the topics will automatically move over your Instagram username, but you can still customize your profile.
Threads give you the option to automatically follow all of the same accounts you follow on Instagram, or just a few of them, so you don’t have to painstakingly locate all your friends and followers on threads.
Users primarily post text messages, or “threads”, with a maximum length of 500 characters each. You can tag specific users in a thread by using the @ symbol in front of their username. Users can limit replies to their thread to only their followers, or people who are tagged in the post. You can also include photos or videos in a thread.
Threads appear in a scrolling feed, where users can like, reply, repost, or quote other users’ threads.
What is missing
Threads may look a lot like its competition, but it’s missing a few important features.
The most obvious omissions are direct messages or direct messages. One-to-one private messaging is a feature of almost every other major social media network, including Twitter, Meta Instagram, and Facebook. Topics are not launched through direct messages, which can be a problem for journalists, who often receive messages from potential sources, or for brands, who can provide customer service through social media messaging.
The thread feed pulls posts from all users, not just those you follow. It can be difficult to find content posted by users or brands you’ve followed, and as of now, there’s no way to change how you load your feed.
Like Instagram, Topics does not display posts in chronological order. Content appears to be categorized by algorithms and served to users regardless of when it is posted.
There are also no paid ads in the themes, yet. However, many brands have already joined. said Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, who is overseeing the new app the edge that the ad would be a “bubbly problem” if the threads were able to expand.
Threads also lack the ability to include hashtags in posts. Hashtags are an essential feature of Twitter, and they have made it easier for users to discover posts under a specific topic, as well as popular content in one place. Likewise, threads do not have a feature that allows users to search for specific text or phrases.
Another major perk is that Threads doesn’t have a desktop website, so you can only access the service via the iOS or Android apps.
There is also a significant downside to linking threads to Instagram. At the moment, dead He says There is no way to delete your threads account without also deleting your Instagram account.
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