Threads

You’d think Threads would already have DMs support given both Facebook and Instagram have it. But nope, you have to head over to a person’s Instagram account and hope that you can DM each other there.

No surprise, but Adam Mosseri tells Casey Newton web Threads is indeed en route.

We’ve been running a steadily growing list of alternatives for that formerly bird-associated social network, and now that TikTok has added a text-only option, it’s become part of our inventory of 15 social networks vying for your attention. If you’re wondering where to go next, these are some interesting choices.

“You asked, we answered,” Meta wrote in the notes for an iOS update released on Monday. “New features coming, so keep an eye out as you browse the latest version of the app.”

The WSJ says that daily active users declined 70 percent to 13 million from its peak (Sensor Tower) and average time users spent in apps decreased to four minutes from 19 minutes (SimilarWeb). Meanwhile, Twitter’s daily active users are unchanged at about 200 million and spend an average of 30 minutes a day on Musk’s not-really-free speech hobby (Sensor Tower).

That’s “way ahead” of what the company expected, he said on Threads. As for what’s coming next, the company is working on “improving the basics and retention” this year, and then “we’ll focus on growing the community.”

That’s because of an increase in “spam attacks,” according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri. I’m guessing these limits won’t affect too many people, though — unlike Twitter’s rate limits.

Lots to discuss this week, but no time to get into it all — we’re on a Chroma-fast. Don’t steal our idea, Goop!

Jack Dorsey — he of the Radiohead posts — has logged on to Threads, it seems. Anyway, a defensive posting 101 lesson for the rest of you: never give your enemies content.

The news broke on Threads v1.

If you want to report a technical issue with the Threads app, all you have to do is give your phone a little shake, and it’ll prompt you to do so, just like the feature Instagram introduced in 2021.

As shown by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri in a 💎 Hidden Gems 💎 thread (I’m just bringing over his emoji usage here), if you tap return three times in a row while composing a Threads post, you can make another post in the thread. I think it’s a really clever feature, and it’s one of my favorite features of the app.

According to Apple’s weekly app rankings, Threads was the most popular free app for the week ending July 9th. That’s not all too surprising, given that Threads has already garnered over 100 million users since launching last week.

He didn’t say specifically what features you can expect imminently, but the team is working on things like “a following feed, the edit button, and post search.”

Perhaps reacting to Threads’ 100 million user milestone, Elon Musk tweeted today that “cumulative user-seconds per day of phone screentime... may hit an all-time record this week.” He noted that stat, “as reported by iOS & Android, is hardest to game.”

According to the @threadsapp account, you’ll see both people you follow and accounts the platform recommends to you. Changes are coming down the line: recommendations will be “more personalized” and yes, the Threads team is working on a chronological feed. Search will get better, too.

That’s not something I thought I’d be typing today, but what else is new? Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader, tweeted his support of Twitter, saying other competitors can’t replace it (via Vice Motherboard).