With the seemingly ever-increasing number of social media apps available to download, staying connected with friends and family, and sharing life’s best and worst moments has never been easier. One such app released recently, which has been making waves in the social media space is Threads. Owned by Meta, and designed to be a companion app to Instagram, Threads seems to be looking to carve out its own niche, offering Instagram users a space to interact beyond the usual confines of images alone.
Although there has been a lot of positive feedback surrounding the launch of Threads, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to social media apps. So, what potential updates and improvements can we expect to see from Threads in the future, and is this an app that is likely to remain popular for a long time? Let’s look at the details so far.
What Is Threads and How Does It Work?
As social media is such a powerful tool for both business and personal purposes these days, users are constantly looking for the next big thing to improve their lives. It makes sense because we use social media tools for so many aspects of our daily lives – keeping up to date with breaking news, following our favorite sports teams, connecting with celebrities, searching for entertainment, such as sweepstakes casinos, and much more.
So, how does Threads fit into this narrative? Well, it’s a text-based conversation platform that aims to be a companion to Instagram. Users can open an account on Threads by logging in with their current Instagram details and can then request to follow the same people across both apps. Then, it’s all about getting involved in the action. Users can post text-based threads, which people can like, reply to, repost to their profile, or share across other apps. Of course, you’re also able to upload photographs and videos.
What Are the Similarities and Differences Between Threads and Other Social Media Apps?
When it comes to first impressions, there’s a lot about Threads that seems to be like Twitter. For instance, both apps primarily deal with text-based posts, which can then be liked, commented on, reposted, and quoted.
However, there are some differences between the two. For starters, Threads cannot currently be viewed on a desktop – only the app. On the other hand, Twitter can be viewed across all platforms. Then, there is the fact that you must already have an Instagram account to open a Threads account, whereas you can register for a Twitter account independently.
Other small differences relate to upload limits, character limits, and so on, but these are always subject to change.
How Did the Launch of Threads Go?
Threads seemed to launch well and already has over 107 million users, which is impressive considering it’s been just over a week since the app went live at the time of writing. However, something that’s worth considering here is that these numbers may have been boosted because Twitter had some serious issues at the time due to viewing limit rates being implemented, which seemed to cause the app to become useless for large numbers of users. Therefore, the switch to Threads came at a convenient time for many people and this may have inflated initial interest in the app.
What Complaints Were Made About the App After Launch?
There’s a lot to like about Threads, especially if you’re a regular Instagram user but would like to be able to have deeper conversations with your connections. However, there have been several complaints about certain aspects of Threads so far, including the following:
- Although registering with Threads through your Instagram login makes things easy for those who use the latter, not everyone has or wants an Instagram account.
- Threads aren’t available via desktop, which some people prefer.
- Although your Threads account is linked to Instagram, you can’t cross-post from the former to the latter.
- There are no hashtag or trending topics features.
- The Threads feed isn’t limited to those accounts you are following and includes things the app thinks you might like to see.
- There is no direct messaging feature.
- You can only delete your Threads account by deleting your Instagram account too.
What Chances and Improvements Will Be Made to Threads?
There are currently several changes and improvements that are reportedly being worked on, including the following:
- Showing posts in chronological order from accounts you follow.
- The ability to edit posts.
- The implementation of a search feature.
- Language translation feature.
- Easy account switching.
- Paid promotion opportunities.
Will Threads Be Able to Surpass Twitter?
This is a difficult one to answer because Threads is so new and there’s a lot of hype behind the launch that may or may not continue as things settle down. However, Threads did manage to gain over 100 million users in the first 5 days post-launch, which is impressive when you consider that Twitter has around 450 million active users.
However, unless Elon Musk continues to do things to negatively impact the user experience of Twitter, then it seems unlikely that much of its user base will make a permanent switch to Threads because it offers many of the same features.
What Has Mark Zuckerberg Said About the Launch of Threads?
Mark Zuckerberg seems pleased with how the launch of Threads went and claims that the goal is to keep it as friendly as possible as the platform expands. Taking a small swipe at Twitter, he also claimed “That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently”. This is an interesting take because Twitter has indeed been successful over a long period but the comment could also just be related to his recent feud with Twitter owner, Elon Musk.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Threads continues to develop as improvements are made. Whether it will be a long-term success seems to depend on if the core user base of Instagram enjoys its features because it doesn’t seem to offer much to entice Twitter users to make the switch permanently currently.
