With an instant click to sign up using your Instagram account—and another to populate your feed with everyone you follow on Instagram, Threads became quick and easy to hop on board. It will, of course, have to roll out new features quickly and judiciously to maintain that momentum. While users have been largely positive about Threads (which works, looks and feels just like Twitter, and on Day 1, minus the trolls), many have noted that it is difficult to discover interesting people on the platform. On Twitter, that is easier done with following Trending topics and clicking relevant hashtags. Both of these are in the works, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has said.
It remains to be seen whether Instagram creators will be just as engaging in text. How Meta will encourage creators to build communities beyond their Instagram fold, and how they will entice—and incentivise—the celebrated ‘Twitterati’ to truly lead in formulating thoughts and mood on the platform.
While we await longer-term data, anecdotally, engagement on Threads seems to have high potential. Twitter has, lately, been favouring paying users over others, and publishers and creators have struggled with getting returns from the platform lately.
Instagram is known for its softer side: An abundance of food, fashion, travel and cat videos. Twitter, traditionally, for its commentators on current affairs, as a place of incisive discourse and activism. In the first run, Threads has been described by users as being safe, wholesome, friendly. Are those words that can describe the world’s new town square? We’ll have to wait and watch.
First Published: Jul 07, 2023, 12:18
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