The new social media app Threads, from Meta, has experienced a mass swarm of popularity on launch day. The company announced more than 10 million sign-ups to the service, less than 10 hours after launch.
The popularity is fueled in large part by the deep cross-promotion with Instagram. After downloading the app from the App Store, Instagram users can sign up to Threads in one tap – with their same username – and a Threads badge appears on your Instagram profile.
The Threads launch could not be better timed, given the tumult of chaos that continues at Twitter. Threads is the closest anyone has come to offering a serious Twitter replacement.
Meta has cleverly branded the app as an Instagram product, disassociating it from the negative connotations of Facebook. And the Instagram integration makes it very easy for people to hop on the service, in contrast to something like Mastodon, which has a much more confusing onboarding experience.
Unlike Mastodon, Instagram has also encouraged a lot of known celebrities and brands to make a Threads profile. Celebrities like Shakira and companies like Netflix were available on Threads on day one. This helped them sidestep the chicken-and-egg problem of the app feeling “empty.”
All of this has clearly translated into a successful day-one launch. But it remains to be seen how Threads will be received over the next weeks and months. Common user requests include the addition of a chronological timeline option, and requests for Threads access on desktop platforms like the web browser, or a native Mac app.
Instagram has also promised that Threads will participate in the “fediverse,” although this is not available yet. Soon, Threads will supposedly be compatible with the same ActivityPub protocol that Mastodon uses, so people can follow each other across networks and freely migrate their data, if they want to.
Follow Benjamin Mayo @bzamayo on Mastodon, Threads, and Twitter.
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