Threads is the fastest-growing social media platform of all time, reaching 100 million users in just five days. The platform was launched by Meta to compete with Twitter after Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk and had a precipitous decline in users and quality. While it ties directly into Instagram and is built on the same technology, Threads is intended to be a town square for the internet. But can a town square thrive when it’s filled suddenly with millions of voices and moderated in the same way that made Instagram a place that was friendly for brands and few others?
Over the weekend, several Threads users noticed seemingly random, out-of-context posts on their feeds — only to realize they were replies without the original post attached.
Fortunately, it looks like a fix may be on the way, as Instagram engineer Seth Kinast says the company is “investigating” the apparent bug.
Meta’s X.com competitor now has 275 million monthly users, up from 200 million in August, according to Mark Zuckerberg. On Meta’s Q3 earnings call just now, he says Threads is seeing more than one million sign-ups per day and is on track to becoming “our next major social app.”
The time people spend in Threads “also continues to grow,” and Meta is working to “make it easier to stay up to date on topics,” adds CFO Susan Li.
That’s Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s response to Walt Mossberg’s frustration about recent Threads engagement. Mosseri acknowledged that Mossberg has a “handful” of posts with engagement that seems “remarkably low.”
In a related update, my colleague Umar Shakir, who wrote yesterday about Instagram disabling his account for allegedly being underage (he’s not), had his account restored with no word from Meta.
Mosseri, who now heads up Instagram, talked a bit about the project in response to a post from our EIC Nilay Patel about the HTC First.
If you want to do some time-traveling, check out Dieter Bohn’s review from 2013.
DomainInvesting spotted the Whois-listed change yesterday.
Last year, threads.com was just the website for a Slack-like app — you can imagine the traffic it got when Meta launched its Twitter alternative. Shopify bought Threads-the-company in June, though, perhaps clearing the way for Meta to scoop the domain for Threads-the-platform. And just in time for its Connect event, no less!
[DomainInvesting.com]
I’ve enjoyed the sliding image carousels on Threads — although it still lacks a toggle to disable autoplaying video — and now Meta’s Twitter-like app can hold up to 20 photos in one post.
That matches the upgrade Instagram announced in August and should be enough for your next visually provocative masterpiece.
During the FediForum conference, Threads showed off a new link that leads directly to its fediverse sharing settings. This may seem like a small update, but it could make it easier to convince other users to toggle on the feature, as they won’t have to dig through their settings themselves.
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Business Insider’s Katie Notopoulos found that her engagement bait Threads posts that encouraged replies were wildly successful — “almost too successful,” she says. Her article about her findings is paywalled, but if you can read it, it’s fascinating.
You’ll now start seeing replies from other parts of the fediverse under posts that aren’t yours, as shared by Threads’ Peter Cottle. Nice way to see more posts from other ActivityPub-based platforms.
Meta is now testing posts that will disappear after just 24 hours, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. (You may recall Twitter’s short-lived version of this, Fleets.)
When replying to one, you’ll see a timer next to the person’s name, along with a banner at the top that says the post will disappear, taking any replies with it, the outlet writes.
Meta told TechCrunch it’s not actually testing ads in Threads yet, but it’s getting more underpinnings in place — now including this “Sponsored” badge that might appear next to an advertiser’s (or sponsored creator’s) username. It was spotted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi.
Threads boss Adam Mosseri confirmed in April that ads are coming; last we heard, it might not be till next year.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that the platform is close to reaching 200 million monthly active users, and now it’s official.
That growth puts it on track to becoming “another major social app,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings call today. Threads reached 175 million users earlier this month.
Spotted by Radu Oncescu, it lets you view custom feeds from your homepage in the mobile app (as you already can on the redesigned desktop app), so you can easily access posts you’ve saved, liked, and filtered only to show posts by people you’re following.
With one year completed for Instagram’s Twitter-like app, Meta illustrator Jez Burrows is showing off some of the other options that were on the table to represent Threads.
Presumably, that tab will show you all of the images and video someone has posted, which is how the Media tab works on X.
The potential new feature was discovered by developer and frequent feature-finder Alessandro Paluzzi.
