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Threads hits 5M signups in the first four hours
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] Merge/see more discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36609632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36609632
- ShakMR 3y agoI also remember how that social network from google got to 15Milion users in no time... We know the rest of the story
- mekoka 3y ago> Threads hits 5M signups in the first four hours. Fragrance of Google+.
- Panini_Jones 3y agoWhat do you mean? I'm not sure I get the reference.
- pyrolistical 3y agoApp required and no Apple login? No thanks
- SanjayMehta 3y agoIsn't that against Apple's guidelines? https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
- clipsy 3y agoPer the link: > Sign in with Apple is not required if: > Your app exclusively uses your company’s own account setup and sign-in systems. I have less than zero interest in zuck-twitter but as far as I know it requires an insta login at the moment, which seems to fall under this exception.
- SanjayMehta 3y agoThis is an interesting edge case: > Apps that use a third-party or social login service (such as Facebook Login, Google Sign-In, Sign in with Twitter, Sign In with LinkedIn, Login with Amazon, or WeChat Login) to set up or authenticate the user’s primary account with the app must also offer Sign in with Apple as an equivalent option. One could argue that Instagram logins come under social networks AND "own company login."
- clipsy 3y agoI'm not a lawyer, certainly, but my understanding is that exceptions trump the rules they are exceptions to. In particular I'm fairly certain that the gmail app (for example) does not allow "Sign in with Apple" even though it (obviously) offers google sign-in. I expect facebook apps to be the same, although I certainly won't be installing any to find out.
- jaimex2 3y agoAbout as believable as Facebook video counts?
- lwansbrough 3y agoAnyone else getting a Same Origin Policy error in Firefox? Threads.net doesn't work at all for me on FF.
- sp332 3y agoI think you have to turn off Enhanced Tracking Protection (and the Firefox Container extension, if you have that) so that it can load data from the other Meta domains.
- pxc 3y agoDoesn't work for me on mobile. I'd assumed it was a uBlock Origin or other privacy protection problem. (When I saw this was some Meta thing I lost interest in figuring out why it didn't load in that browser.)
- tomxor 3y agoYeah, it's chocked full of CORS violations. If you turn off tracking protection it loads, but you aren't missing anything, it's just the word "Threads" a basic webgl animation and a QR code to install an app.
- strunz 3y agoIt's not just the landing page, actual posts don't load either, e.g. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36610844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36610844 I had to turn off tracking for the domain to get it to load, looks like it needs the "Social Media Trackers" to load from https://statc.xx.fbcdn.com https://statc.xx.fbcdn.com
- CursedUrn 3y agoYup, the main link (Zuck's message) just shows me a threads icon and nothing else in Firefox. The threads.net top level page doesn't show anything at all. I don't see how this is supposed to be a Twitter killer when it doesn't even load!
- johnwheeler 3y agoThe UX is much better than Twitter IMO. I like how easy they made the onboarding
- JoshGlazebrook 3y agoHonestly this is what I think everyone has wanted for a while. It's a stripped down version of Twitter from years ago without any of the nonsense and ads, and a straightforward ui/ux. And it already has your profile information from Instagram and everyone you already follow and/or friends with so there is little to no setup required which makes the onboarding essentially one or two taps. edit: and yes I know the irony of "no ads or nonsense" (yet), but as a way of getting people to join (in the near term) its a pro.
- jtbayly 3y agoYeah, I'm sure there won't be ads for at least (checks watch) a few more hours.
- ozfive 3y agoWhat makes you think they aren't going to put ads in shortly? They are most likely trying to entice people to sign-up and will, once they get to a critical mass of engaged users, add them in.
- brookst 3y agoWhen someone gives you free ice cream, do you eat and enjoy or wring your hands that they might charge for it in the future? Of course it will get ads. Nobody expects otherwise. But right now, under the deal that is, it’s interesting enough to try.
- djbusby 3y agoYea. The same scheme heroin dealers use.
- invalidname 3y agoThat's a pretty problematic analogy. When someone says he will publish your book and pay you but once the book is popular he will stick his content in the middle of it and redesign it...
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
- atorodius 3y agoAny info on when the app will become available outside the US? edit: not sure why I‘m getting downvoted, didn’t realize it was mostly about me being in Europe
- lvturner 3y agoI'm already using it outside of US (Hong Kong)
- lucasban 3y agoIt is available outside the US, in most regions other than the EU (which is due to concerns about violating the DMA afaik)
- thomasahle 3y agoHow does it violate the Digital Markets Act?
- marketingtech 3y agoEU customer data must be stored and served within the EU, and that guarantee can't be made with a federated service.
- arlcode 3y agoWrong law though. The GDPR requires data protection and it mostly goes against Metas business interests to do so. It's not required to store or process date in Europe (im quite sure "serving" is not a problem as Mastodon instances can legally operated here). And anyway Meta has plenty of European resources. For now. If it's a success it'll come in due time.
- MikusR 3y agohttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/meta-won-t-offer-threads-app-in-the-eu-on-regulatory-concerns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/meta-won-... "Meta is waiting for more guidance around the Digital Markets Act, new EU competition rules that govern how large online platforms use their market power, a person familiar with the matter said, " DMA is about large companies and not the tiny mastodon instances.
- sdsd 3y agoI wanted to sign up but it looks like it's only available for mobile. Guess I don't get to be 5M+1!
- isawczuk 3y agoTwitter has became soo weak that even Meta decided to forget about status quo and build alternative.
- asd88 3y agoSurprised to see a non-acquired, non-Facebook app developed by Meta succeed
- jonathankoren 3y agoIt’s been four hours. Don’t you remember when everyone signed up for a Google+ account?
- NikolaNovak 3y agoFondly. I still miss it
- miked85 3y agoIt seems just a bit premature to call it a success.
- gigmana 3y agoFederated Authentication (using Instagram) and UI is smooth. It just might work.
- pxc 3y agoInstagram already does the annoying, user-hostile things (e.g., trying to force users to log in while browsing) that Twitter started doing even long before Musk's acquisition. Do we really want to leapfrog fresh startups on the enshittification treadmill and jump straight to Meta-level dark patterns? And tie one more identity into that huge tech giant?
- redox99 3y agoNo web/desktop version is a dealbreaker for me
- sgc 3y agoAgree, seems like a terrible decision. Twitter took off in part because people could post and have a wide audience. That audience is greatly reduced if there are no casuals allowed.
- minimaxir 3y agoMobile only doesn't imply no casuals: many mobile-only apps have done extremely well. Atleast Threads is on both iOS and Android for once. But yes they should have a desktop client.
- sgc 3y agoYou could be right. I only install apps as a last resort / for important functions, so I might not be a typical user.
- jtode 3y agoI am pretty sure the released product represents an extreme rush to market, and an incomplete representation of their intentions for it. Reason: Meta has been having NDA'd meetings with admins of the larger Mastodon instances, and it's no secret that they intended to have this on the Fedi, which is also not in the current release. My assumption is that the NDA meetings were to promise fiscal help for instance admins who will necessarily get a huge flood of new traffic when Meta brings their tsunami of Intsadiocy to the Fedi infranet; my guess is it will be an amount of money that gives them a fair amount of discretion and which is pretty big to them, but pretty small to Meta. A means of getting the bigger "players" to let them execute their strategy, even knowing full well their intention to follow the Embrace with the formulaic Extend and Extinguish. Most actual founders who actually know tech things also accept this deal when they get bought out. No reason not to think they'll bite, and most of them did, or at least, they went to the meetings and then started doing syrupy posts about "fair play" and "they get to have a chance," cause clearly the techbros have not yet had a chance to fully implement their genius plan that's totally gonna work guys. And the whole "we love the openness" thing, I believe that as much as I believe Microsoft love Linux. Not that Elon isn't their primary target, though why they're bothering I don't know, he's basically sitting in the middle of Main Street, covered in gasoline and holding a lighter screaming for attention. He's gonna get sent somewhere soon. Possibly space, who knows. But has really hung his ass waaaaaay out there the last week or two and I think they couldn't resist the urge to fuck it now rather than later. Other reason I think they rushed is, the Fediverse as it was a couple weeks ago made their feelings pretty clear about federating with Meta, and I'm pretty sure they have been paying attention (not like the Fedi is private after all). Someone in the structure recognized that if they really do hope to execute the Embrace move, this is not the safe moment to do it. Which means that the intense month of ActivityPub/Mastodon focused dev they've been doing has been premature, but they couldn't predict the last two weeks a month ago, so they're pivoting the product on the fly to a Twitter-grab posture. My guess is that the people who were working on AP support are now either developing the WebUI for Threads, or else the implementation to allow people to view Threads through the Insta site, with a lightning fast rollout coming by end of next week. They will still roll out to Mastodon as well, but I'm pretty sure from what I saw on the Fedi that they have come to understand that this is not the unsuspecting populace that they afflicted with Cambridge Analytica; this is a small subset of that population that learned the lesson thereof. If they hope to have anything to do with it, one thing is certain, they need to move slow.
- snvzz 3y agoIt is Facebook. People who are in that ecosystem will use it, whereas those of us who aren't will not go anywhere near it.
- purplejacket 3y agoTop comment.
- mongol 3y agoExactly. For some reason I have this irrational dislike for the Meta universe. I made a choice early on to not join Facebook and since then it has been a like personal rule for me. But I am bad at keeping myself accountable since I use Whatsapp to communicate with my immediate family.
- djbusby 3y agoNot irrational.
- kelnos 3y agoI don't think that's irrational at all. I joined in April 2004, shortly after it was first open to some colleges, and at that time it was great. For the next few years at least, it was a pretty positive place, without all the "engagement hacks" and ads and junk. I joined Instagram as soon as it was available on Android (2012 I think), and loved it. By that point, Facebook was starting to get a little icky, and I really liked that it was just photos, all positive stuff, and always reverse-chronological. Then Zuck got his dirty hands on Instagram, and it of course started getting icky in many of the same ways Instagram did. I quit Facebook in 2018, and Instagram not long after, and haven't really looked back. I still would occasionally sign into my FB account for event invitations, but seems like most of my friend group doesn't use FB for that anymore, so that's mostly gone. Everything Meta touches turns into garbage. It's all about emotional manipulation and getting people worked up about something or other. Your take on Meta/FB from the beginning turned out to be prescient, I think.
- snvzz 3y agoNever had a FB account. Never used Whatsapp either. I got bad vibes from Facebook from the very start, and steered clear.
- kmoser 3y agoI need another app on my phone like I need a hole in the head. What makes this better than, say, Facebook's news feed?
- kytazo 3y agoMy exact thoughts
- jonathankoren 3y agoGiven Instagram’s 2.35 billion users, is 5 million a lot? Im genuinely curious. Don’t get me wrong, the headline number looks impressive, but isn’t 1 million / hour kind of expected at this scale?
- Flatcircle 3y agoIf threads can’t kill twitter, nothing can.
- EGreg 3y agoThen nothing can. Or you could be wrong.
- brookst 3y agoOnly they could be wrong, eh?
- bob-09 3y agoI mean, Digg still ain't dead. Twitter could pivot, right?
- marcosdumay 3y agoAs far as I can see, Twitter doesn't need any help for that.
- peanuty1 3y agoBluesky could kill Twitter.
- llui85 3y agoLooks like they're having some performance issues - loading a profile doesn't seem to work: https://www.threads.net/@zuck https://www.threads.net/@zuck
- notatoad 3y agogiven that threads.net still links to a blank landing page, i'd guess that it's not so much a performance issue as the web version not being launched yet
- knodi123 3y agonope! it's just zuck! https://www.threads.net/@jkottke https://www.threads.net/@jkottke
- knodi123 3y agoHah, it's just zuckerberg. Kottke's threads page has been loading fine all day. https://www.threads.net/@jkottke https://www.threads.net/@jkottke
- WatchDog 3y agoThat one doesn't work right-now for me either
- 88913527 3y agoHigher up in thread, people are saying there is no desktop client. iOS/Android only. Here I see links, and now I'm confused.
- Dwolb 3y agoMeta does ~3B DAU, so this is about 0.16% of that.
- jonathankoren 3y agoIt’s hooked into instagram, so you need to look at insta’s numbers only. You’re including FB and WhatsApp. Insta’s DAU is 500 million. Naïvely: 500 million / 24 = 20.8 M / hours 5 million / 4 hours = 1.25 M / hour Dividing, you get a 6% install rate. I suspect the actual number is waaaay different from this due to audience bias. Regardless, install day numbers are vanity. The real question is who is using it tomorrow, and a week from now.
- arlcode 3y agoDoes that include WhatsApp? You can't really lump that in with Metas other products. Most people don't doom scroll WA ;)
- proxiful-wash 3y agoSurprise said no one, this is literally every single political entity in the world trying to get in a day zero a FUCKING SHILL.
- xarope 3y agooh wait a minute, mobile app only? you can't fool me, not after the catastrophe that was the facebook app...
- MicropenisMike 3y agoThe Facebook app is fantastic in my opinion.
- toomanyrichies 3y agoCool, now all we need is an Apollo app for Threads. Something to filter out all the "suggestions" they give for who to follow.
- ggm 3y ago"of course, morphine is the heroin we've all been waiting for"
- lamontcg 3y agounderrated comment
- djbusby 3y agoThis is not the Musk/Zuckerberg fight I wanted to see. :(
- jimmySixDOF 3y agoAgain though if you want a fresh account based on a specific area of interest to work from, Meta will not let you. They need your real name your real phone number and have the all profile details for your phone (Android permission). Nope. On twitter I have a handle and it follows other 3D XR accounts and thats all I am interested in. It's social but its within a specific professional context. I still have no idea why Meta will not let you keep separate identities. It might have been prevailing wisdom when Facebook and LinkedIn got started but it is anachronistic now in the 2020s
- davepeck 3y agoAt this rate, in its first 24 hours Threads will probably accumulate more user accounts than Mastodon has in its 7 year history. (~13.2M at the moment: https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount)
- GolfPopper 3y agoObligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/
- kalleboo 3y agoInstagram has 2.5 billion monthly active users. You only need 0.5% of them to sign up for Threads to surpass Mastodon in users.
- scovetta 3y agoHard pass. No longer doomscrolling and chasing adrenaline fixes on social media has improved my quality of life immeasurably. Obviously to each their own, but I've given up looking for a non-toxic social media platform.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- meghan_rain 3y agoAgreed 100%. I see a future where there are two types of people: politicized, divided, depressed, 24/7 like chasing addicts living bubbles with fried attention spans, and the new ruling class. Why 5M people would voluntarily put themselves in group 1 is beyond my comprehension.
- nirui 3y agoI wonder if anybody tested it's ActivityPub feature. Is it actually supported? Thanks in advance.
- sp332 3y agoNot implemented yet. https://help.instagram.com/169559812696339 https://help.instagram.com/169559812696339 Also some of the larger Mastodon instances have said that they will not federate with Threads, although the largest mastodon.social will.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoNot yet, but they continue to double down on planning to support it: https://www.threads.net/t/CuRtcYTNY3J/ https://www.threads.net/t/CuRtcYTNY3J/
- Tiktaalik 3y agoA pretty terrible initial experience of being thrown into a pit of blue checked instagram influencers that I do not recognize or care to follow. I am not sure how much I'll use this unless it receives a feature to filter out the white noise of terrible suggested posts from the algorithm.
- kabirgoel 3y agoOnce you start following people the noise mostly disappears. Think the initial feed is a way for users to bootstrap their follow list.
- Joel_Mckay 3y agoSo you're saying the Bots got there first... =)
- startupsfail 3y agoNo advertisements? Is that a conversational data collection tool? What is the TOS? What kind of data are they upvoting ?
- ranjanprj 3y agoThere is this div at the bottom <div class="AdBox Ad advert post-ads"></div>
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iKlsR 3y ago2023 and a basic website doesn't work on firefox why?
- SXX 3y agoI wonder how soon Meta moderation policies will kill this platform. Elon of course abuse his power to ban those he dislike and to ban trackers of his plane (and to help some dictator war criminals while he at it), but Facebook / Instagram censorship and bans are pretty random, harsh and irreversible. Platform by Meta likely mean that good chunk of Twitter audience is not allowed to use it: some journalists reporting on war crimes, OSint, anything related to porn and gambling, sex workers, etc. Twitter is full of shit, but at least I have a choice to look at whatever I want without corporate nanny censoring world for me.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoIf there's one thing I think we've learned from Twitter, it's that for most people, none of that actually matters. De-platform folks on the alt-right? Twitter lives on. De-platform folks on the left, re-platform folks on the alt-right? Twitter still lives on (though with far fewer advertisers). Ban journalists and then invite them back? Journalists: "Please sir, may I have some more?" It seems only folks who are chronically online actually talk about any of this, and only a vanishing few actually care enough to do anything about it. That said... > but at least I have a choice to look at whatever I want without corporate nanny censoring world for me. Yeah, I don't know which Twitter you've been visiting, but this is just flat out not correct. Twitter is absolutely censored. Maybe it's censored in a way you like, but let's not pretend it's some sort of free speech free-for-all.
- goldenchrome 3y agoWhen were people on the left de-platformed?
- BaseballPhysics 3y agohttps://observer.com/2022/12/left-wing-twitter-accounts-criticizing-elon-musk-are-being-suspended-for-platform-manipulation-and-spam/ https://observer.com/2022/12/left-wing-twitter-accounts-crit... https://www.thewrap.com/elon-musk-called-out-banned-left-wing-accounts/ https://www.thewrap.com/elon-musk-called-out-banned-left-win... https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/a-leaked-internal-message-appears-to-show-elon-musk-ordered-twitter-staff-to-suspend-a-left-wing-activist-s-account/ar-AA16NS0X https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/a-leaked-internal-mess...
- kyriakos 3y agoStill not available in my country. I never understood this especially by META which already has all it's apps available here.
- monetus 3y agoI am very much enjoying the ui, and feel like twitter is killing it's network effect while this is doing the opposite for now. This won't be the end of twitter, not globally. Some say Pepsi was the best thing to ever happen to Coca-cola.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- Kye 3y agoNYT's Hard Fork podcast did an interview with the one of the key people working on Threads. If you were curious about the official Meta position on all your concerns and want answers to questions you have, that's the one to listen to. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/podcasts/special-episode-metas-twitter-rival-arrives-with-adam-mosseri.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/podcasts/special-episode-...
- freediverx 3y agoFuck Facebook.