Thursday, July 6, 2023

First impressions of Threads: can Meta do this?


The app looks almost identical to Twitter. The character limit, the reposting, the feed. It's all incredibly familiar.
 Mark Zuckerberg claims millions of people have signed up in the first few hours. You should always be sceptical when a tech boss says how many users have signed up to a platform. But it does feel like a lot of people are already on it. That's partly because it's connected to Instagram.
 If you are already on Instagram, you are given the option to "follow all" of your Instagram followers when you sign up. The option gives you a ready-made follower list, but also means you'll be likely to gain followers as your Instagram friends sign up. This is clever from Mr Zuckerberg, and why Big Tech companies have massive advantages over smaller ones. Meta isn't creating an app from scratch.
 It's benefiting from its billion-plus Instagram followers that are giving it a massive shot in the arm. Platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon did not have this luxury. They started with zero users.
 But whether this is "fair" or not, Mr Zuckerberg doesn't care. He's copied other apps before to great success (Reels is a clone of TikTok) and he's happy to do so again.
 
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