6 ms·

Threads is an entire era now? Surely it's a liiiiittle too early to make that claim.

scrumper 3y ago
Maybe it's fair? It's the first major persistent broadcast messaging platform since Twitter popularized the concept with non-computer nerds.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  "Maybe" isn't good enough.
madeofpalk 3y ago
I think it's fair to say that we have a post-twitter, or elon-twitter era when all of a sudden Twitter has a bunch of competition that it's never really had before. I wouldn't say it's Threads' era, but it does seem like something has happened. Something has to be said about about the fact that now Meta decided to launch a Twitter clone.
- soperj 3y ago
  Why? Did something have to be said when Google launched Google+? Or any of the other social platforms?
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    Yes that was definitely an era of its own when there was lots of stiff competition for social networks.
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
    My memory is hazy of those years, but I do think it was a bit different. IIRC, G+ was a defensive maneuver. G was terrified of FB, who was executing successfully on many fronts and putting pressure on advertising revenues. And so G tried to make G+ happen. By contrast, in this case, Twitter keeps shooting itself in the foot. (I guess that's what happens when you lay off huge swaths of the company and demand that engineers print out their code on paper.) So Threads (and others) are moving into the vacuum that's been created. So things right now feel like much more of a competitive land-grab, and it's not entirely clear who's going to win (or even why/how they'll win, or even what the victory conditions look like).
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    Pretty sure Threads has more users in less than a week than G+ ever had...
    - soperj 3y ago
      I wouldn't trust uncorroborated numbers that aren't even talking about daily active users.
- mjfl 3y ago
  but Twitter didn't even matter when it was just Twitter. Twitter was a minor, failing social media site up until Musk bought it.
  - kalupa 3y ago
    not sure that's been corrected yet. Seems to be becoming more minor and more failing
    - nancyhn 3y ago
      By what metric?
      - dspillett 3y ago
        The increased number of viable competitors (in terms of mind-share, I'm not suggesting there has been significant movement in terms of capabilities in the last twelve months) and the level of interested in then certainly makes twitter's position rather less comfortable than it might otherwise have been. There certainly seemed to be a number of advertisers who reduced, or entirely removed, their commitments to purchase space on the platform. While many have since reversed somewhat on that, many have not or have not completely unless there has been a major change this quarter (the just full figures I've seen reported in were for 2023Q2 and IIRC the total advertising sales were down >55% compared to 2022Q2). That is two fairly negative indicators with demonstrable evidence. Do you have any positive metrics in mind?
    - aksss 3y ago
      I'm guessing they're financially healthier on the opex side of things than they've ever been. I mean, they've never been profitable, the revenue loss was reactionary and it's not crazy to think that will come back as Twitter hits record user minute metrics and such. Thread is probably going to be robbing its own revenue from other Meta platforms more than Twitter's, I'm guessing. I read somebody today remarking that Twitter was an indignation machine, but I think twitter is very productive if you're following people who produce content or information rather than following political pundits and reporters.
bonestamp2 3y ago
It has amassed 110 million users in a week. It feels like the start of something new and noteworthy. Maybe "era" isn't the right word, but I think we can still take away the message they're trying to convey.
- autokad 3y ago
  maybe, but massing users is not the same as massing people who actually use it. They just tied it to instagram no? It doesnt mean these users that clicked a button will actually use threads
  - spiderice 3y ago
    Correct. The 110 million users needs to have a huge asterisk next to it. I signed up for Threads to see what it was like. Haven't gotten back on since. Obviously plenty of people have. But that 110 million number is basically meaningless without knowing how many people have used it a second or third time.
    - MR4D 3y ago
      And you will continue to be a user because if you delete your account, your instagram goes too. More of Zuck cheating at life.
      - dspillett 3y ago
        Not that I'm one to defend Facebook and it's robotic overlord, but that sort of essentially meaningless user counting is commonplace. What proportion of twitter's official user count are regularly active and how many have not touched it at all recently?
        MR4D 3y ago
        I agree completely. I'm trying to highlight that this is a particularly egregious way of counting users. I fully expect that if this continues past a few months, then shareholders will demand real numbers ("active" users) as you mention to in your comment.
Jeff_Brown 3y ago
Indeed. What lawyers call "assuming a fact not in evidence".
catsarebetter 3y ago
Way too early
PaulHoule 3y ago
It threads is basically successful (say 20 million people stay engaged) and it joins with the Fedi successfully I won’t feel bad about them calling it the “Threads era”. I wouldn’t take either of the above for granted but I wouldn’t think either is impossible. What puzzles me the most is that Threads is seemingly 50 times larger than the Fedi already at which point there doesn’t seem to be any point in Thread joining it. Many people on the Fedi want to block Threads for various reasons, not least because some people don’t want to share a social network with anyone who disagrees with them, but also Threads doesn’t support features that are important to anyone who takes Fedi participation series such as image alt text and hashtags.
blitzar 3y ago
The argument, broadly, is that in the marketplace 2/3/4/5 years ago - anyone who launched a twitter clone, be it facebook, google, apple or god themself, was not going to get millions of users on day 1 and on day 2 would probably be shutting down. Various changes in the market place have opened up things, possibly to more competition, posisibly to less, but a new era nevertheless.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  There is no such thing as "a marketplace" when we're talking about a product with a user base of 3 billion users. There is no generalizing here: an immensely vast user base (with numbers you can't even phathom) was presented with a new service, signups for which had no downsides to click-through. This is nothing like "clone apps" on a "marketplace". This is Facebook pushing an app out, and the world pretending it's somehow not just another Facebook app that BY DEFAULT will have several percent of the Facebook/Insta userbase signing up because, again, there is no downside. Feeling cute, might cancel later. Except cancelling turns out to be a mild inconvenience compared to signing up, so people won't bother.

Maybe it's fair? It's the first major persistent broadcast messaging platform since Twitter popularized the concept with non-computer nerds.

TheRealPomax 3y ago
"Maybe" isn't good enough.

madeofpalk 3y ago

I think it's fair to say that we have a post-twitter, or elon-twitter era when all of a sudden Twitter has a bunch of competition that it's never really had before. I wouldn't say it's Threads' era, but it does seem like something has happened. Something has to be said about about the fact that now Meta decided to launch a Twitter clone.

soperj 3y ago
Why? Did something have to be said when Google launched Google+? Or any of the other social platforms?
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  Yes that was definitely an era of its own when there was lots of stiff competition for social networks.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
  My memory is hazy of those years, but I do think it was a bit different. IIRC, G+ was a defensive maneuver. G was terrified of FB, who was executing successfully on many fronts and putting pressure on advertising revenues. And so G tried to make G+ happen. By contrast, in this case, Twitter keeps shooting itself in the foot. (I guess that's what happens when you lay off huge swaths of the company and demand that engineers print out their code on paper.) So Threads (and others) are moving into the vacuum that's been created. So things right now feel like much more of a competitive land-grab, and it's not entirely clear who's going to win (or even why/how they'll win, or even what the victory conditions look like).
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Pretty sure Threads has more users in less than a week than G+ ever had...
  - soperj 3y ago
    I wouldn't trust uncorroborated numbers that aren't even talking about daily active users.
mjfl 3y ago
but Twitter didn't even matter when it was just Twitter. Twitter was a minor, failing social media site up until Musk bought it.
- kalupa 3y ago
  not sure that's been corrected yet. Seems to be becoming more minor and more failing
  - nancyhn 3y ago
    By what metric?
    - dspillett 3y ago
      The increased number of viable competitors (in terms of mind-share, I'm not suggesting there has been significant movement in terms of capabilities in the last twelve months) and the level of interested in then certainly makes twitter's position rather less comfortable than it might otherwise have been. There certainly seemed to be a number of advertisers who reduced, or entirely removed, their commitments to purchase space on the platform. While many have since reversed somewhat on that, many have not or have not completely unless there has been a major change this quarter (the just full figures I've seen reported in were for 2023Q2 and IIRC the total advertising sales were down >55% compared to 2022Q2). That is two fairly negative indicators with demonstrable evidence. Do you have any positive metrics in mind?
  - aksss 3y ago
    I'm guessing they're financially healthier on the opex side of things than they've ever been. I mean, they've never been profitable, the revenue loss was reactionary and it's not crazy to think that will come back as Twitter hits record user minute metrics and such. Thread is probably going to be robbing its own revenue from other Meta platforms more than Twitter's, I'm guessing. I read somebody today remarking that Twitter was an indignation machine, but I think twitter is very productive if you're following people who produce content or information rather than following political pundits and reporters.

bonestamp2 3y ago

It has amassed 110 million users in a week. It feels like the start of something new and noteworthy. Maybe "era" isn't the right word, but I think we can still take away the message they're trying to convey.

autokad 3y ago
maybe, but massing users is not the same as massing people who actually use it. They just tied it to instagram no? It doesnt mean these users that clicked a button will actually use threads
- spiderice 3y ago
  Correct. The 110 million users needs to have a huge asterisk next to it. I signed up for Threads to see what it was like. Haven't gotten back on since. Obviously plenty of people have. But that 110 million number is basically meaningless without knowing how many people have used it a second or third time.
  - MR4D 3y ago
    And you will continue to be a user because if you delete your account, your instagram goes too. More of Zuck cheating at life.
    - dspillett 3y ago
      Not that I'm one to defend Facebook and it's robotic overlord, but that sort of essentially meaningless user counting is commonplace. What proportion of twitter's official user count are regularly active and how many have not touched it at all recently?
      - MR4D 3y ago
        I agree completely. I'm trying to highlight that this is a particularly egregious way of counting users. I fully expect that if this continues past a few months, then shareholders will demand real numbers ("active" users) as you mention to in your comment.

Jeff_Brown 3y ago

Indeed. What lawyers call "assuming a fact not in evidence".

catsarebetter 3y ago

Way too early

PaulHoule 3y ago

It threads is basically successful (say 20 million people stay engaged) and it joins with the Fedi successfully I won’t feel bad about them calling it the “Threads era”. I wouldn’t take either of the above for granted but I wouldn’t think either is impossible. What puzzles me the most is that Threads is seemingly 50 times larger than the Fedi already at which point there doesn’t seem to be any point in Thread joining it. Many people on the Fedi want to block Threads for various reasons, not least because some people don’t want to share a social network with anyone who disagrees with them, but also Threads doesn’t support features that are important to anyone who takes Fedi participation series such as image alt text and hashtags.

blitzar 3y ago

The argument, broadly, is that in the marketplace 2/3/4/5 years ago - anyone who launched a twitter clone, be it facebook, google, apple or god themself, was not going to get millions of users on day 1 and on day 2 would probably be shutting down. Various changes in the market place have opened up things, possibly to more competition, posisibly to less, but a new era nevertheless.

TheRealPomax 3y ago
There is no such thing as "a marketplace" when we're talking about a product with a user base of 3 billion users. There is no generalizing here: an immensely vast user base (with numbers you can't even phathom) was presented with a new service, signups for which had no downsides to click-through. This is nothing like "clone apps" on a "marketplace". This is Facebook pushing an app out, and the world pretending it's somehow not just another Facebook app that BY DEFAULT will have several percent of the Facebook/Insta userbase signing up because, again, there is no downside. Feeling cute, might cancel later. Except cancelling turns out to be a mild inconvenience compared to signing up, so people won't bother.