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,
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.
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.
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.
My feeling also. I really doubt so many people were eager to create an account and engage on a totally new and untested platform that has nothing novel really.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More than half of my personal follows on Twitter are enthusiastically jumping over. I don't spend a lot of time on Twitter these days, so maybe I hadn't realized it was bad enough to send people running happily into the arms of Meta.
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."
"Instagram could be a primary driver of Threads’ adoption. This is due to a badge assigned underneath your Instagram profile picture with a number. This number denotes your user number on Threads. These are thought to be chronological, with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg holding the coveted “1” badge.
Dexerto has observed that the user numbers have now surpassed 44 million at the time of writing, and it’s likely that as more regions find that the app has launched, this number will continue to rise."
First it's the number of sign ups, then it's the posts and likes, then it's the number of eyeballs grabbed and the ad revenue. This kind of metric chasing that these platforms encourage is one of the reasons why they become so toxic.
I don’t think it’s millions of bots, unless you are using that term derogatorily like some use “NPC.”
The media are pushing Threads with every fiber of their being. Tech-adjacent sites like TheVerge are absolutely unuseable right now because like 9/10 stories on their page are about how great Threads is and everyone should go to Threads and “hey, follow me on Threads.”
People need to acknowledge modern journalists/reporters/staff writers for what they are: influencers. That’s why they love Twitter. That’s why they love Threads. That’s why they demand corpo algorithms to boost their content and force it upon other people.
And that’s why they repeat a lie about the fediverse so insistently: that it is hard to get into. It is so hard to pick one of the top 2 largest sites and give them a username, password, and sometimes an email address. Journalists/writers generally don’t like Mastodon because it doesn’t force anything onto users. That means they have to organically earn a following.
But Meta will just give it to them by forcing users to see their posts.
Eh, they serve pretty different niches. I joined it, and while it's quite a lot of fun, it's much worse for having more earnest and in-depth conversations. Reddit-style platforms really don't have anything to worry about from it.
A lot of people aren't for or against "the masses", but rather there are specific people, communities and topics that they want to follow, and they may follow them wherever they thrive.
Personally I'm not too convinced by this idea that "Lemmy is better because there aren't so many people in it". I look forward for it and Mastodon to grow. I'd rather if Meta doesn't get to be the main replacement for Twitter, but if there's where all the people I want to follow go, then I guess I'll have to go there too. At least the Fediverse integration might serve as a middle ground so people can follow Threads users without being beholden to Meta.
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.
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.
IG has 1.2B accounts. So it makes sense they would have millions of Threads accounts created on day one. If Meta gets 1/3 of their IG account holders to create Threads accounts, they will equal Twitter in numbers. Twitter I believe has over 400M accounts.
I've signed up because I despise musk and the feed is quite different from the verse. I watch them both. Praying that they never merge as the day that happens is the day I'll quit both and go back to mirc.