5 Threads Launch Curiosities

topics here. An Instagram-based Twitter clone has been launched in most countries of the world, with the exception of EU countries, and its release has left a few curiosities.

In fact, we can say that the first hours of the new social network were lived in the midst of euphoria and chaos. Millions of people didn’t want to miss out on the debut of Mark Zuckerberg’s platform, which even ran into some problems due to the huge influx of new users.

Since the issue of Threads was full of quirks, we want to use these lines to tell you about the most important ones. From the brutal rate of registration of new users, to complaints about the lack of some key features, not to mention the “algorithmic tricks” trying to steal the community from Twitter from the first minute.

1 million users per hour

Threads was originally scheduled to launch on Thursday morning, but Meta changed their plans and moved the launch to Wednesday. As of 7:00 pm EST, the doors to this new social network were “open” and the registration of new users was monstrous.

Actually, Threads averaged its first million users within the first 60 minutes.. And the pace picked up rapidly. Mark Zuckerberg pointed out that there were 10 million discharges in 7 hours, and at the moment their number already exceeds 30 million.

Compared to other social networks, Threads is impressive. It took Twitter 2 years to reach 1 million users, while Instagram did it in two months.. These were different times, it’s true, and the argument for Meta to “grow” statistics is that many users have chosen to sign up by importing an existing Instagram account.

Meta has managed to generate legitimate interest in its new product. The real challenge now will be to keep the attention of these millions of users who have come looking for the ultimate alternative to Twitter.

Topics do not have hashtags or direct messages

Aside from the initial confusion caused by the application’s interface (which we’ll cover later), there were two features missing from the Threads release that attracted a lot of attention. First of all, lack of hashtag support, a feature that is already widely used across all social networks. A curious case, no doubt, given that Instagram allows you to use them. Meta will likely add this feature in the coming weeks as the influx of new users stabilizes.

Lack of opportunity for send direct messages This caused some disgust among users. Although it is still not too clear whether this was done intentionally. Let’s not forget that Meta already has a messaging platform (Messenger) integrated into Instagram. Therefore, it is quite logical to think that the company intends, at least for the moment, to reserve private communication for this application.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, made it clear that some features that are not in Threads today will come later. Although in one of his posts he kind of hints that private messages are still not a priority:

“The real test is not if we can create a lot of hype, but if everyone finds enough value in the app to keep using it for a long time. feed tracking, chart synchronization, Fediverso support, possibly messaging. We are on it. The (incredible) team starts to work. But keep in mind that this will take time.”

Adam Mosseri at Threads.

chaos feed main

All of us who have come to Threads have encountered feed chaotic main. While the initial account setup allows you to automatically follow anyone you already follow on Instagram—if you import your profile from there, of course—many of us prefer to start from scratch. And all of a sudden it got weird.

Even if you haven’t followed anyone yet, when you first log into Threads, you find that the home screen doesn’t look blank. Against, he was inundated with posts from completely random accounts —those who had early access to the service—which made the onboarding quite confusing.

streams do not have feed where you can only see what the accounts you follow are posting. Mosseri and Zuckerberg promised the feature would be coming soon, but it would have been nice if it had been available from the start.

Another point to keep in mind is that no matter how much you change your notification settings to make things more convenient, third-party themes that you don’t subscribe to continue to appear on your feed when someone you follow replies to them. Clearly, Meta has a lot of work to do in this aspect of the social network.

Threads does not natively (yet) support GIFs

This is probably the biggest disappointment among those who are taking their first steps in Threads. The social network allows you to upload photos and videos, but does not yet have built-in GIF support.. And you can’t add them from the Google keyboard either, for example, if you use an Android smartphone.

The only way to post GIFs to threads, at least for now, is to download them to your mobile phone and attach them to the thread for posting. Although the experience may vary depending on each user. In my case, I was able to post one when the thread was opened, but when I uploaded the other one in replies to a third party thread, it showed up as a static image. This is probably a bug that the Meta will fix soon.

Steal the community from Elon?

In addition to first impressions of streams, features that are not and will be, The most curious thing about its launch was the emergence of “recommendations” from Twitter accounts.. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who noticed this, but it seemed pretty crazy to me.

What I mean? What’s within minutes of using the app feed from The threads started showing me the posts of people I followed on Twitter. and that they are also coming to a new social network. The amazing thing is that he didn’t follow any of them on Instagram and he didn’t have any relationships outside of the bird platform.

This is where Meta’s algorithms and the vast amount of data it collects as a result of our online activity will undoubtedly play a decisive role. While it’s impossible not to feel like this is some sort of stab in the liver of Elon Musk, an attempt to “steal” his community.

Bonus: Dart Zuk on Twitter

Believe it or not, Mark Zuckerberg has a Twitter account. However, until last night, the profile had just over 610,500 followers. More than 10 years have passed without activity. In particular, Zuck has not tweeted since January 18, 2012. But he decided to return to the stage just an hour after the premiere of Threads, when Menlo Park was euphoric.

What did the Meta CEO tweet? Meme with two Spider-Man pointing at each other. The publication came out without text and special mentions, but with the clear intention of reviving the competition. And it has had the expected effect: it has already gained more than 24,000 retweets, 7,100 quotes and 176,000 likes.