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Introducing Threads
- hmhrex 7y agoLooks like Facebook is after Marco Polo now - https://www.marcopolo.me/ https://www.marcopolo.me/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- creyes 7y agoI typically like having less apps on my phone rather than more. This feels like when Facebook spun off Messenger, I just stopped using it on my phone
- holy_city 7y agoIt's interesting that Uber decided to merge their apps (Uber + Uber Eats) while FB seems to want to create more. Personally I don't care about app count, I'm just not a huge fan of when companies spin features off as products unless it makes total sense. I think it does in this case, it looks like a crossover of Messenger and Instagram that reminds me of Snapchat when it was just a sexting app.
- sbarre 7y agoUber and Uber Eats are still separate apps for me (on iOS). If I pick Eats from the main Uber app, it jumps to the other app.
- icebraining 7y agoSeems they announced a few days ago, but it's not live yet.
- TheAceOfHearts 7y agoA suggestion: you can use mbasic.facebook.com from your mobile browser to communicate on Facebook. No apps required.
- buboard 7y agoI get the marketing angle . This is directed to the social media addicted and it launches the camera directly , so the app icon is basically a shortcut key. I m surprised they didnt just launch a phone for it.
- m12k 7y agoI did the opposite: Kept Messenger and got rid of the Facebook app. That way, when someone wants to talk to me, I don't get sucked into the void of their newsfeed - so it becomes just one more communication app alongside iMessage, Telegram, Whatsapp and Discord for me.
- davinic 7y agoThis is exactly why they spun it off. They've known for a while that many people are walking away from FB, so they're adding apps to retain you as a customer, and all the data collection that entails.
- chungus_khan 7y agoI just wish those services exposed a chat protocol that I could connect to from a single messaging app. I'd straight up pay for access to such a thing.
- bikezen 7y agoIt's not a protocol, but an app, but bitlbee and even pidgin tend to support a lot of these various chat services with plugins.
- pradn 7y agoSame here. Messenger spinning off kept me on Facebook. I use Messenger all day long; I like the the UI, especially reactions and replies. I now log into Facebook once or twice a month. It just gives me FOMO. No need for that.
- jedimastert 7y ago> This feels like when Facebook spun off Messenger, I just stopped using it on my phone From a separate point of view: I was super happy when Messenger was spun off so I could delete Facebook from my phone.
- zinclozenge 7y agoSNAP stock fell 5% on the announcement, it recovered by about 2% but still a big drop.
- crimsonalucard 7y agoWhy in the world would programmers name a feature after a programming primitive? I'm gonna make a new chat app called deadlock.
- holy_city 7y agoNew calendar app: Priority Inversion
- kjeetgill 7y agoSo Jira?
- uptown 7y agoPretty unlikely that Facebook is allowing programmers to name this type of thing.
- fourseventy 7y agoThe word 'thread' has existed since long before computers.
- crimsonalucard 7y agoThat's not the point. The point is programmers created this feature and decided name it the same thing they used to create it. A seamstress isn't going to call a piece of cloth a thread, when cloth is made up of threads.
- olah_1 7y agoThis is consistent with 2 major trends in social networking projects: 1. The closer the relationship the faster the communication 2. Different levels of privacy should be in different UI spaces entirely (fiddling with privacy settings on posts is not how we think about privacy in real life) I think both are great ideas that extend natural human relationships and communication rather than forcing people into unnatural modes.
- antpls 7y agoSo, what's the difference between WhatsApp, FB Messenger and Threads? They all allow to message a selected list of contact, send videos and have a status, all owned by FB. What's the strategy here?
- umeshunni 7y agoDifferent audiences. Whatsapp is for non-US general population. FB Messenger is for US general population. Threads is for US and non-US Gen-Z and below.
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoI don't understand the positioning. So it's instagram but only with friends and with status as an option? Why couldn't they change instagram to filter on friends or something?
- danhak 7y agoIt’s another direct shot at Snapchat. They’ve already tried the “close friends” feature with Instagram stories. Anecdotally, hardly anyone is using it.
- ricardobeat 7y agoA good chunk of my friends use stories daily. It's the new facebook for 30+ year olds :)
- rattray 7y agoThis seems very directly targeted at teens, competitive with the constant-social use of "find my friends". My impression is that many youngsters keep shockingly close tabs on each other, which this seems built to enable.
- sarcasmatwork 7y ago>Threads is a standalone app designed with privacy, speed and your close connections in mind. I dont believe you FB. Prove it! This all clear text or there encryption?
- SamuelAdams 7y agoIt was designed "in mind", meaning, they thought about it but didn't actually do anything about it. /s
- caleb-allen 7y agoI party with safe alcohol consumption in mind
- sdan 7y agoFB saying they designed it with privacy in mind is like McDonalds saying they design their food with your health in mind. Remember they stored Instagram's passwords in plain-text at one point (I remember in High School even I salt and hashed passwords for users)
- ASalazarMX 7y agoTheir privacy means they get to farm your data first.
- rvz 7y agoFB has always been the worst defenders for your privacy. > We know people want to stay connected with their close friends online. How on earth did they 'know' this? Perhaps using machine-learning on the surveys and activities that they have collected on Facebook / Instagram? No doubt about it as they already admitted this at the top of their banner on Facebook: 'To help personalise content, tailor and measure ads and provide a safer experience, we use cookies. By clicking on or navigating the site, you agree to allow us to collect information on and off Facebook through cookies. Learn more, including about available controls: Cookie Policy.' Who knows if this banner applies to Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp without explicitly placing the notice. Their stance on privacy for Threads is no different.
- kissgyorgy 7y agoFinally! I really missed yet another chat app which can even more divide all my communications with my friends! So good! The world needed this very much!
- nnd 7y agoThe issue is not so much the diversity of clients, but fragmentation caused by proprietary protocols they use.
- ASalazarMX 7y agoI still miss the few years where Trillian talked all instant messaging protocols. Jabber had a brief shot at unifying them, but no dotcom wants to be a commodity.
- ariel_h 7y agoHope it won't become Deads
- Tarrosion 7y agoWhat are the demographics of the targeted or expected audience? n=1 this doesn't appeal to me; why would I want to fragment my communications further? But I could believe that teenagers would use this more; I've read that many young people today aren't on a single monolithic platform like FB or Instagram but instead have different social apps for different friend groups or parts of their lives.
- SamuelAdams 7y agoRemember "Poke" or "Slingshot"? I wonder how this will be different this time around. There's already an app on the Apple Store called "Threads", so I'm sure having the same name as an established app will not help any. https://www.engadget.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Slingshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Slingshot https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2012/12/introducing-poke-for-mobile/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2012/12/introducing-poke-for-mo...
- azr79 7y agoRemember bolt?
- sidcool 7y agoI am not a fan of Facebook, in fact quite the contrary. But you do have to give them one credit, they understand Social very well. HN audience is not something FB targets. The world outside HN is quite different and loves FB, Instagram etc.
- webkike 7y agoI love instagram. I will never use this.
- ariel_h 7y agoThey had the "moments" app, which wasn't successful as expected. They had everything needed to make it work, the user base, engineering resources, but they still failed.
- untog 7y agoI actually don't think that's true at all. Facebook has been caught sleeping again and again with the latest social trends. This new trend of private, group communication seems to be something that's completely caught them off guard and now they're trying to catch up.
- dcolkitt 7y agoThat's a fair point. But Facebook has managed to grow its ARPU to insanely high levels that far outstrip pretty much every other social media outlet. There has to be some sort of magic there. Maybe someone with more experience in the space can offer more insight here. But it just astounds me that Facebook has managed to generate at least an order of magnitude higher ARPU than Twitter, Snap, Reddit, etc. They're making as much per user as Netflix does from actual paying subscribers.
- kristianc 7y ago> This new trend of private, group communication seems to be something that's completely caught them off guard and now they're trying to catch up. I'd bet that there's more of that happening on WhatsApp than any other app in the world, possibly by an order of magnitude.
- vasili111 7y agoI live without any social network. I use only Skype/phone for voice calls and rarely some messaging with Whatsap for messaging and that is all my online communication (except work email). I am pretty happy.
- acheron 7y agoArea Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
- hk__2 7y agoSo you use Skype, phone, WhatsApp, and email. That’s not really the definition of “without any social network”.
- dsalzman 7y agoThis is the app to compete with TickTock from the leaked FB all hands meeting
- ssorallen 7y agoI wonder if this is part of the plan to merge messaging on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Pull out the final messaging platform that doesn't have its own app and then begin merging Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp into one. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-insta... I'm actually happy to install this so I can delete Instagram. I keep Instagram around because some friends only message me through that.
- icebraining 7y agoThat article says the apps will remain separate, only the backend will be the same. You don't need to separate Threads out of IG to use that unified backend.
- blueish 7y agoSome people may not see the use case, but the popularity of SNAP has shown that there is a user base for this product. What's interesting to me is Facebook's decision to completely copy the use case in an attempt to capture the market. They've tried to do so with Instagram Stories & DMs, as referenced to by the post, but I'm curious about the rationale to make it a standalone app, which would hurt adoption. I suppose the idea is the entry point - Instagram's entry point is viewing content, not creating content (the feed is the first thing that shows up when opening the app). Threads is the same as SNAP in that the first entrypoint is to create content: it opens the camera. It'll be interesting to see if this can succeed in finally pushing SNAP out, as one benefit for users is leveraging the existing social graph from Instagram, whereas you must add people for SNAP.
- deepsun 7y ago2 moderators: can we have a better title? I was expecting to see something about concurrency and multi-threading.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]