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Tech giants Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are locked in a fierce business rivalry that has spilled over into a playground brawl, with the two men offering to fight each other in a cage.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
meta It has officially launched the Twitter-like messaging app, which the company is promoting as Instagram’s “text conversation app”.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Meta, announced the launch of Thread on Wednesday, marking the official release of the new text-focused messaging app from the social networking giant. Threads represents Meta’s attempt to catch the wave of users who have left Twitter amid its often unpredictable ownership Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Meta said in a blog post that the Threads app is now available for free download on the Apple App Store and Google Play online store in more than 100 countries. Themes share the visual aesthetic of Twitter as a text-based social messaging app through which users can post short messages that others can like, share, and comment on, according to screenshots of Themes available in the Apple App Store.
People will be able to follow the same topic accounts they follow on Instagram and respond to other public posts in a similar way to how people use Twitter.
The official release comes after Instagram released Monday pre-ordered Thread on Apple’s App Store, which said at the time the app was expected to debut on July 6. Many Instagram users have recently been able to get invitations to access threads from within their Instagram accounts.
Although the threads are related to Instagram, with users able to use their existing Instagram usernames, the messaging service is a separate app that people will need to download.
“Things are where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’s trending tomorrow,” Instagram said in the description of Topics on the Apple App Store. “Whatever you’re interested in, follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build your own loyal following to share your thoughts, opinions, and creativity with the world.”
Meta said in the blog post that people’s individual feeds on the new messaging app will include “message threads” posted by other users they follow, as well as recommended content shared from creators users may not know.
People will be able to post thread posts of up to 500 characters in length, and while the app is text-oriented, people will also be able to share links, photos, and videos that can be up to 5 minutes long. Instagram users will also be able to share their posts via the app’s Story feature in addition to “any other platform you choose,” the blog post states.
Meta said it has developed Threads with “tools to enable positive and productive conversations,” and people will be able to manage who mentions or replies to them within the app.
“Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter replies to threads that contain specific words,” the blog post reads. “You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile by clicking on the three dots menu, and any accounts you have blocked on Instagram will automatically be banned in the threads.”
Racing into the gap as Twitter collapses
The release of the themes comes as Twitter has suffered a wave of mishaps under the ownership of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, leaving the popular social messaging app vulnerable to competing apps.
Several Twitter users have publicly complained about Musk imposing a temporary so-called “price cap” on Twitter, saying the tweet limits make the app a less engaging experience.
BlueSky, a competing social messaging app backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, said it had “record traffic” after Musk announced Twitter’s rate cap, pausing sign-ups to deal with an influx of newcomers. Users, who must currently be invited to use the app.
Like BlueSky, Thread will use decentralized technology that will theoretically allow users to control and manage their data across other apps that include the same underlying software.
While BlueSky is built on a decentralized networking technology called the AT protocol, Threads will eventually integrate another decentralized technology called ActivityPub, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a post on Wednesday that was briefly available to the public. ActivityPub also powers another Twitter-like messaging app called Mastadon, which has also seen an influx of new users looking for an alternative to Twitter.
Mosseri said his team wasn’t able to include support for ActivityPub in time for the official release of Threads due to “a number of complexities that come along with a decentralized network.” But he confirmed that support is coming.
“If you’re wondering why this matters, here’s why: You may end up one day leaving threads, or, hopefully, you won’t end up canceling the platform,” Mosseri said. “If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that.”
Meta added in its blog post that ActivityPub will enable people without thread accounts to view threads and interact with thread users who have public profiles via other social apps that incorporate the same decentralized technology.
“If you have a public profile on Topics, that means your posts will be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people without extra effort,” Meta said in the blog post. “If you have a private profile, you’ll be able to approve users in Topics who want to follow you and engage with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.”
Meta said Threads is the company’s first application “envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol,” which it believes could open up “a new era of diverse, interconnected networking.”
In 2019, Meta, then known as Facebook, launched a messaging app for Instagram users which was also called Thread. Unlike the current iteration of threads that cater to text messaging, the previous threads app was instead focused around people sending short video and photo messages to their friends as if they were using Snapchat.
dead in the end closed Topics in 2021, and redirect people to use Instagram to see all of their past messages.
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