Instagram’s new Twitter competitor, Threads, is off to a rocket start. Mark Zuckerberg announced 30 million activated profiles, while internal data shows over 95 million posts and 190 million likes in less than one day,
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Everyone move to Threads
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Elon is forced to sell Twitter for $50k
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Everyone leave Threads and go back to Twitter
I’m lowkey pumped about Threads even though I’ll never use it because of the prospect of Elon having to sell cheap
- Profit
- ???
- Repeat
- Kiss
- <Redacted>
Or
- Everyone move to Threads
- Elon is forced to sell Twitter for $50k
- Everyone leave Threads and go to BlueSky
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Am I the only one who finds those numbers abnormally high? The sourcing also seems suspect - going through the verge posts, they’re just quoting internal numbers with no sourcing.
Here’s my question - it says activated profiles, not 30 million signups. If a large chunk of those are Insta and FB users, it seems more than likely that a lot of those profiles could be activated internally (I work with databases, this could be as easy as changing a 0 to 1 in a field in the profile table if they’ve got it integrated right). I’m also curious as to the content of the 95 million posts - how many of those are an automated “Hi I’m on threads!” message when the profile starts up?
That being said, I’m not curious nor stupid enough to actually signup and let them Zuck my data, but this smacks of astroturfing.
Instagram has more than 2 billion active users, and each (non-EU) Instagram user can conveniently login Threads just pressing a button. If they’re fudging the numbers, activating only 1.5% of their potential userbase seems odd. Why not activating hundreds of millions of accounts?
As for the posts, an average of 3.2 posts/users for just the first day sounds reasonable to me.
Meta has several billion active users across their platforms. 30M is nothing to them.
Also don’t forget that we’re talking about a microblog, so it will inherently generate a large amount of individual posts, much more so than e.g Instagram. The quality is however likely very low initially and a lot of users are probably just trying out the current talk of the day.
I do suspect that Threads will probably grow to a few hundred million users before the end of the year; anything less would probably be regarded as a colossal failure for Meta.
The barrier to entry is extremely low. If you have Instagram on your phone, you can just download the app and sign in using the same saved credentials, so you don’t even have to create a new account or type in your password.
Given that, and the very large pent-up demand for a decent alternative to Twitter, I’m not at all surprised it’s doing well.
A new social network from Meta, without any privacy, with algorithms to show us what they want?
No, thanks. I love Mastodon.
Yeah, I really don’t get it. I understand people staying on Twitter because that’s sunk cost. They don’t want to lose their notoriety. But what the hell is the point of using Threads? Everything I’ve read about it makes it sound awful.
This article said all I needed to know:
Imagine an active comment section on an Instagram post on someone you follow. Not great, eh?
Now imagine that same comment section, make it infinitely long, AND give users the ability to include images, videos, and links that you can’t avoid seeing.
That’s Threads.
What’s there to not get. To you, the word “Privacy” is a concern. To most people, it’s “that shit that never bothered me, why care?”.
You’re here, on this platform, you’re already not most people.
It’s not just the privacy though, I get that a lot of people don’t care about that. It’s that it sounds like a total dogshit of a social media platform.
Yeah, but it’s the NEWEST dogshit platform made by <company with sizeable marketing budget>. It could be the next big thing, dogshit or not! How can you or the likes of (checks notes) AOC possibly miss out???
Great definition. 🔝
Euro here, still no sign of any threads
With their privacy policies they probably can’t launch in Europe without getting fined into oblivion.
I’m sure they’ll come around to making it work with our laws. Too big a market to miss entirely
And that’s a good thing
You can download an apk and it will work
That’s assuming they are an Android user
That’s assuming they are an Android user
I haven’t been following anything regarding Threads so I assumed it was out here in Europe too, it’s actually a relief that it isn’t. Won’t stay long like this, but it’s something.
Oh
As much as I dislike all the recent twitter changes, this gives Meta even more of a monopoly on social media networks
Like millions of others I went to check it out because the startup of a new social network is exciting.
It sucks. Mostly because of Instagram migration all of the spam and grift is there on day 1.
There’s also this fake “positivity” vibe that they’re trying to promote that is so fake and shallow with literally zero backup how would it be encouraged or grown despite “be positive” sort of sham messages.
Major disappointment. It literally does nothing new.
25 million spambots, 5 million users.
Or…
It is actually fairly popular. I’m sure there are more than a few bots, but a pretty huge chunk of people I actually know have been active on it.
Yeah that fake positivity came from Instagram. It’s like staring at an alternate reality.
I’ve only kept my Twitter because for some reason Britney Spears follows me. I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago before now. I have no interest in Threads. If people like it, great, it’s just not for me.
Hhaa, what do you post about?
I’ve not Tweeted in about 6 years, and have never Tweeted about her, or to her. I actually thought it would be a fake account when I saw “Britney Spears wants to follow you”, but to my genuine surprise it was actually her official account.
Tweet me baby, one more time.
If people like it, great, it’s just not for me.
I’ve gotta say, it’s very refreshing to see this attitude, since the main attitude I’ve seen here is “This is popular with normies who listen to bad music and like dumb celebrities, therefore it’s bad and terrible and I hate it!”
A few months ago, I moved myself onto a “live and let live” outlook on life. If people like things I don’t, good for them; I’m glad they can find enjoyment in what I can’t - it’s what keeps life interesting. I did once fall into the “x is better than y” and “popular = bad” pit, but using all your energy saying about how y is bad and x is good is just a waste of time when you could just be doing x instead and enjoying yourself.
The former Prime Minister of my country follows me on twitter as well
Edit: also an actor from Scrubs, but not one of the main ones
It’s so strange when a recognised public figure follows you. Personally, I feel almost estranged from it - it’s not the kind of life I live so it’s bizarre that it happened (even though I doubt Britney would ever see any of my Tweets anyways, as she follows ~350,000 people).
It’s The Todd isn’t it?
Well tell Brittany where she can find you on the next platform! 😁
See, this is why capitalism trends toward monopolies.
A small developer could create the exact same app down to the semicolon, but wouldn’t get even a quarter of the traffic on release.
But because it’s Meta (and somehow despite their awful record of privacy violations), the app gets over 30 million signups.
The internet is controlled by 4 companies and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Except it is nowhere near a monopoly in the social media space. There are so many general options, and specific forums for topics, etc. That’s not even to mention the fact that just because something doesn’t provide the exact same service doesn’t mean it’s not a competitor. In person communication, VoIP, etc are also competitors to social media.
You mean going out clubbing is praxis? 🍒
Unfortunately that is the power of marketing, an already established user base and a low barrier of entry. People who have Instagram accounts already have a Threads account, and people who have a Facebook account already have an Instagram account. It’s much easier to get them to try than it is to get people to sign up for any Fediverse instance.
I just hope that once it opens to the Fediverse, people who are already there can feel more comfortable to make the leap and drop Meta. Because Meta is not going to let the users drive the experience anyway.
It’s not sign ups “activated profiles”. It’s people using their same insta account to use Threads.
That is literally how you sign up to use Threads, so I’m not sure this is a meaningful distinction.
The low barrier to entry was a very clever idea on their part.
It’s very much a distinction. It’s deceitful to claim there’s “millions of users who signed up/activated” It’s implying or coyly trying to say these are new accounts, especially to people who are on the outside and don’t know. Better to just say, “Millions went back to Instagram to activate their Threads account.”
Bots. Lots and lots of bots.
What are usual numbers on Facebook and Instagram? These numbers sound extremely high. Is the app being heavily talked about in your circles?
Instagram has 2 billion active users. So only 1.5% of users have activated Threads.
These numbers aren’t extremely high, we just don’t realize the scale of the world outside our little fedi-bubble.
People are annoyed at the changes and decrease in content quality. It makes Instagram in a healthy market to destroy Twitter.
Lol no, especially with all of the censorship it has
Pretending Twitter is a bastion of free speech is laughable. Twitter is full of censorship. And it’s the kind that appeals only to a certain demographic.
i don’t think the comment was implying that it was a bastion of free speech, but when you compare twitter and meta platforms, twitter definitely has the edge in a lot of communities, especially sex-positive ones
It absolutely does not have an edge. You can’t even use the term “cis” without getting banned. I can’t imagine that being a plus for sex positive communities where that kind of information is extremely important.
sex positive is not the same as queer friendly
you can’t post nipples on instagram, you can’t post even a hint of a bare ass in a jockstrap on instagram… you can post fisting and ws videos on twitter
you’re right, edge isn’t apt: there’s no comparison between the 2 platforms for sex positive communities
If they exclude entire demographics, it’s by definition not friendly nor positive.
B̷̞̆o̶͙̎t̴͓̀s̷̻͝ ̶͈̓f̶̟͛o̴̢͋r̷͉̆ ̵͇̕t̴̥̄ȟ̸͍ė̴̻ ̵̱̈B̶̝͘ò̸̠t̶̽ͅ ̷̧͑Ǧ̴͉o̴̦̎d̸̮͊
As the numbers get higher, my interest gets less and less.
A good example of the usefulness of social media platforms is tiktok. To start with it was a pointless platform, full of the young and beautiful dancing to shit music. It’s still has plenty of that, but if you use the search function it has so reasonable content.
But threads can’t be useful yet as nobody has figured out the application yet. Give it six months it might be okay but not yet.
I wonder how many of them are real people
