Taking on Twitter
By Fay Capstick
In a surprise move last week, Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced they were launching a new social media service. This week we will be looking at what Threads is, and digesting the impact of this new addition to the internet landscape.
What happened?
Last week Meta announced that they were launching a service called Threads only two days after the press release. On Thursday 6th, Threads was born. This is obviously something that Meta had been working on for a while and was waiting for the correct moment to launch.
The launch came less than a week after Elon Musk announced some changes that would dramatically affect Twitter usage for many. He was imposing a limit on the number of Tweets that could be read in a day to 600. This limit would be higher for people who had paid for the verified blue tick service, they get 6,000. New users can now only see 300. Further, the content on Twitter can now only be viewed by registered users. After a poor reaction to this news, after only 3 hours, Twitter changed these limits to 10,000 for verified users, 1,000 for unverified users, and 500 for new accounts.
Musk also said that Tweet deck would now be behind a paywall. Tweet deck enables users to organise and easily monitor accounts. The paywall will become active in a month. This will mainly impact business users.
Both moves baffled users, as Twitter is rather useless if you can’t see the Tweets, a move that will particularly impede paid business users. This is rather ironic, as the changes have been made in an attempt by Mr Musk to boost the money that Twitter is able to generate.
What did Meta do?
Meta took this news and announced the launch of their own service, Meta. Meta was immediately available to pre-download from the Apple App Store. The drawback here is that Meta is initially only available as an App on Apple devices. We don’t yet have a timescale for a fuller rollout. Threads is also currently available only as an app, with no desktop version available. This will suit casual users, but not anyone using it for business.
Sign up
The sign-up process was super fast, as there is an option to use your Instagram profile details, which gets you the same handle, profile picture, and bio blurb. I took this route and the process took seconds. You can choose to make your account public or private, and this can be different to the setting on your Instagram. You are also given the option to automatically follow Instagram accounts that you already follow and have people follow you that currently do on Instagram. This feature makes it super simple, but it feels like you are interacting with exactly the same people as before, just in a slightly different setting.
So how is it?
In the name of research, and because I spend far too much time on social media, I signed up just after midnight to see what it was like.
The answer is exactly like Twitter. Squint and it is Twitter, except it was a lot quieter. Some users had obviously been given early access, so there were at least some posts waiting from well-known names, such as Lando Norris. It was strange to see Coldplay with few followers, and fascinating to see how quickly the numbers went up as people signed up.
The bonus is that the bots, trolls, and ads, haven't arrived yet, making Threads a far nicer place to be.
The downside is that you are viewing posts/Threads from those you haven’t followed. This can be partially remedied by going into settings and giving priority to Threads from those that you follow, but you will still see the Threads chosen by algorithm, which is annoying users.
Another current drawback that will hopefully be rectified is that there is no current ability to flip between accounts, which is needed when many have multiple social media profiles.
Interestingly, there is no option to direct message other users, which could be good or bad depending on your preference. There are also no hashtags on Threads, which could impact the way that content is found, especially as there is currently no search function. Therefore unless you are following an account or the algorithm serves you up a post, you simply will not see it. This will make it hard to find content, grow a following, or interact with others you might not know.
Changes
Meta has said that Threads will evolve and change and that features will be added in response to user feedback. I feel that some of the features that are missing are only absent due to the speed with which Threads launched in response to the chaos at Twitter.
On Tuesday, Meta announced a future feature to show Threads in chronological order. Adam Mosseri from Instagram, who has been put in charge of Meta says that tweaks are coming.
What is heck is the Fediverse?
One of the notices given upon sign-up included mention of the Fediverse. So what exactly is the Fediverse and where did that come from? Fediverse means that you will be able to communicate with other social media platforms, like Mastodon (another service that tried to rival Twitter), WordPress or Lemmy. This will enable users of different platforms to interact with each other. It has been explained as being similar to the idea of being able to exchange emails with users who use other email providers than yourself.
Many are not keen on this idea, as they want to keep their social media bubbles separate. Many Mastodon users are joining a ‘fedipact’ in the hopes of being able to block Meta.
So, do we need Threads?
Threads is nothing new. It is basically Twitter in a different package. Threads have a higher character limit of 500 compared to 280, which is definitely a bonus. Both Treads and Twitter enable users to post links and photos. Threads will allow longer videos to be added up to a length of 5 minutes, compared to just under 2.5 minutes.
Users seem to be keen on the idea, with 100 million of us signing up in less than a week. And that is without the service even being available yet in mainland Europe. So if numbers are anything to go by, it is off to a fantastic start. Time will tell if it does indeed become the viable Twitter competition that we are all hoping for.
We shall continue to monitor the impact of Threads on the social media landscape.
Final thoughts
At Parker Shaw we have been at the forefront of the sector we serve, IT & Digital Recruitment and Consulting, for over 30 years. We can advise you on all your hiring needs.
If you are looking for your next job in the IT sector please check our Jobs Board for our current live vacancies at https://parkershaw.co.uk/jobs-board