There’s a new platform in the social media playground: Threads.
It was created by Meta (which also owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, among others).
Like many, I have been feeling that I really do not need another social media product in my life. There is enough discovery / inspiration / knowledge sharing / [insert your option here], already. And the downsides of using social media (the shouting, the sense of time wasted, the corporate surveillance…) are weighing heavier and heavier, as far as I am concerned.
But, of course, Threads is not just another social media product. Threads is very much the platform that aims to replace Twitter, amid all the Elon Musk drama.
Will it succeed?
It depends on many factors, including how easy it is to find accounts to follow and gathering followers (i.e., the “social” part of this new social media platform), plus the extent to which the experience on the platform (i.e., the “media” part) is better than on any of the other platforms (namely, Twitter).
My early thoughts on this unfolding story are outlined below. I would love to hear yours.
How good is Threads on the “social” part of social media?
Finding interesting and relevant accounts to follow, and being found by others, is the essence of using a social media platform. Otherwise, you are just talking to the void. For me, that was the challenge of Mastodon. Setting up an account was easy – but I didn’t have a reason to come back over and over, because my network had disappeared, and there was just too much friction to (re)create it on Mastodon.
Threads not only makes it really easy to reconnect with your crowd, they even encourage you to import your Instagram network. You can also cross post on Instagram and Threads, which creates opportunities for observational learning.
In my view, Threads scores highly on this dimension.
How good is Threads on the “media” part of social media?
Once you join the network, the question becomes how good the experience will be. This, in turns, depends on the platform’s design and the other users’ behaviours.
The design has been a problem in Instagram. The feed is increasingly littered with advertising and promoted accounts, making it really difficult to find your friends’ content. Moreover, Instagram makes it really difficult to add and follow links, which limits users’ ability to get immersed with the content that they come across.
Regarding other users’ behaviour, it looks like Threads has been trying to attract niche content creators (Bookstagram, for instance), with some success. Will it also support API links, which could foster innovation and amplify the value of user generated content? Seems unlikely, judging by the historic approach on Instagram and Facebook.
It may be difficult to attract the business users that, in the meantime, migrated to LinkedIn. Namely, it is unclear the extent to which “LinkedIn Follow” has replaced Twitter’s broadcasting functionality and, therefore, reduced the need for an alternative-to-Twitter, like Threads.
Will Threads appeal to news broadcasters? In my view, this is a key group to attract and support. Twitter made its name as the place where news would break. If Thread can become this place, it will be a major win for the new platform. However, if Meta starts limiting news broadcasters’ reach, like they did on Facebook, journalists may not bother to create for Threads, and that would really limit the reasons to join this platform.
And last but not least there is the question of whether Threads will just become a breeding ground for hate speech like Twitter, racist and misogynistic content like Facebook, or harmful content like Instagram. Unlike Twitter, Meta has not depleted its moderation team. The process of creating accounts also creates some friction for the chatbots and spam accounts that litter Twitter. However, judging by the content that continues to be allowed in Facebook and Instagram, it is unclear that Meta will have the appetite to police what goes on in Threads to the level of, say, LinkedIn.
My assessment is that Threads will be a serious threat to Musk’s Twitter. However, it will not raise to the level that Twitter once was at. But neither will Twitter for that matter. We have gone past peak social media.
What is your view: Is Threads the decisive nail on Twitter’s coffin?
Ana Canhoto 
To be honest, never understood the fascination with twitter, a simple sentence shout… as if it can transmit anything substantial. To me, it can be replaced by any other similar tool, unless it has something more interesting than someone shouting simple sentences, it does not appeal to people like me. Prefer a bit more substance to the messages. It’s like a newspaper just with headlines…
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I think that “headlines” was the whole point of Twitter. You could get the feeling of what was going on in the world: a volcano eruption in Iceland, the results of an election in the UK, a report published by WHO, a blog post by a friend, a crowdfunding campaign 😉 But, yes, often there isn’t much substance behind it. It does have the huge advantage of allowing links to where you can learn more about something, unlike Instagram.
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