When Elon Musk took over Twitter, a lot of promises were made. Hopes were flying up for Twitter users. Now eight months later, and Twitter is at the brink of death. Literally.
As Elon Musk tries to hold on to his loyal users, comes in his rival Mark Zuckerberg, the brain behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. These are three of the most popular social media platforms of all time.
So it’s really not a surprise that Zuckerberg’s new app is taking the world by storm, precisely Elon Musk’s customers, who in all honesty, seem to be tired of Twitter and Musk’s shenanigans.
The users’ 13th reason why was when Musk decided to place limits on accounts that do not pay him $8 every month. They couldn’t have it anymore, and hundreds of thousands of tweets went out that day, criticizing-or in Twitter slang, dragging-Musk.
Zuck saw this as an opportunity to make another one of his smart business decisions, and he created Threads. An app that directly seeks to draw Twitter users away from Twitter. I downloaded Threads today and tried it for hours. Here is an immersive experience that will tell you everything you need to know about Threads.
Threads: Just another Twitter ripoff?
It should be kept in mind that this is not the first time someone has created an app similar to Twitter, intending to draw full attention of Twitter’s special brand of users.
In fact, the original founder of Twitter himself Jack Dorsey, tried that too. Didn’t work all too good. At least not as fast as Threads has. So what makes Threads so special? And is it worth it? Or is this just another bad Twitter ripoff?
Threads has had over ten million downloads since it’s launch, an extremely incredible feat. But let me tell you how Zuck managed that. So, when you download the Threads app, and open it, it doesn’t tell you to create an account. This is what it says:
Creating new accounts from scratch is impossible. You have to just log in with your already-existing Instagram account. And this is a very smart way to draw people in.
This is because Instagram has around 2.4 billion users as of the time I wrote this. Twitter has only 450 million. Zuck is merely capitalizing off the people who are already enjoying another app of his.
When you log into Threads, it automatically brings your Instagram data into the app. That is, username, profile photo, and even settings that you have on the Instagram app. It is directly linked to your Instagram. The moment you log in and click on the next button, this is what shows up:
The app allows to follow your Instagram followers immediately, either one-by-one, or all of them at once. People with blue check marks, like celebrities, Insta models, and other influential accounts automatically gets their blue check mark on Threads too. See what he did there?
This is what your Profile page will look like on Threads:
It’s quite similar to Twitter. Take a look at what the Activity page looks like:
This is what you’ll see when you click on the Add New Threads button:
And this is what the homepage looks like. Check out Zuck’s reply to what that user said:
I have never paid close attention to Mark Zuckerberg beyond writing about his creation from time-to-time, so I can’t say I ever took him for a very interactive person, but if you go to his page on Threads and click on “Replies,” you will see many replies of him agreeing to suggestions for improving the app by random users.
And what’s more, ‘Zuckerberg’ and ‘Threads’ is currently trending worldwide on Twitter with millions of tweets. Before our eyes, Zuck has stolen Musk’s users and his name has dominated the platform.
So, is Threads just perfect?
I have seen many celebrities already on Threads. I have seen hundreds of posts on Threads.
It’s clear that people like the app. But are there any caveats you should know of? Well, yes. No app is perfect, because technology in itself isn’t. Threads’ most popular caveat is that it doesn’t let people delete their accounts. That is bugging a lot of users.
If you want to delete your Threads account, you’d have to delete your Instagram account too. But you can delete posts you’ve made one-by-one if you want.
Another limitation is that the app refreshes itself way too frequently. This used to be a Twitter problem, and I’ve seen Zuck’s reply saying they will fix it.
This is not the first time Zuck and Musk’s rivalry has made headlines in the past month. They were rumored to be preparing for a cage fight with one another, until recently when, apparently, Musk’s mother said it was not going to happen.
Musk has not publicly acknowledged Threads or its creator yet, and Zuck has not directly mentioned Twitter or Musk either. It remains to be seen if Twitter still has a future and if Threads is here to stay.
We all know that Twitter users are the most difficult people in the world to please. Let’s see if Zuck has what it takes to satisfy them in the long-term.
