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I wonder if there were also people motivated by their hatred of what happened post Twitter. I recall that Meta hired a bunch of ex-Twitter people. Some probably

I wonder if there were also people motivated by their hatred of what happened post Twitter. I recall that Meta hired a bunch of ex-Twitter people. Some probably had an axe to grind. Whatever they did Twitter folks or not, it was an extremely slick launch. Any Threads people reading this should pat themselves on the back. On a side note: It was also fun watching Musk fuming that week when the Threads numbers came in. :D

zone411 3y ago
Except that they botched the most important part of the launch by releasing a bare-bones MVP too early.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  I disagree, I felt it had the features a typical user would be ok with. II didn't really feel like I was missing anything but maybe im too much of a lite user.
  - zone411 3y ago
    It didn't have search, trending topics, DMs, a web version, non-Instagram account creation, or availability in Europe. All are very popular. No real innovation over Twitter either, but that's not unexpected. This is excusable in a normal startup MVP, but not when you promote it all over Instagram.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      You are making an assumption that there is a tighter coupling with Instagram's infra than in reality...especially at launch. I could see maybe trending topics as possibly a feature that would be nice to have at launch but the others? The following are my thoughts if I were a PM choosing features. search - What are you going to search for when the app is brand new? I believe we did have user search as I recall using it so you must be referring to content search. DMs - Do we know what their anticipated user projections were going to be? I could see this feature being a worthless endeavor vs other things they could have done if the userbase ended up being small. a web version - These guys are a mobile first company, the large % of users are on mobile, their existing web properties are either in maintenance mode(facebook) or just thin wrappers(instagram). I can see why this wasn't a priority. non-Instagram account creation - Sounds like either this was a way to bypass overhead in their typical new user generation or they felt one click signup from IG would encourage more active users/reduce issues of bots which may not have been thought out at launch. It would be interesting to learn more about this unclear part of the infra. Europe - Even for big company launches they typically american first, likely for the same reasons why we dont see big new tech companies ever launched from Europe anymore: too many little issues dealing with all the different countries in the union, issues with complying with various regulations.

zone411 3y ago

Except that they botched the most important part of the launch by releasing a bare-bones MVP too early.

nebula8804 3y ago
I disagree, I felt it had the features a typical user would be ok with. II didn't really feel like I was missing anything but maybe im too much of a lite user.
- zone411 3y ago
  It didn't have search, trending topics, DMs, a web version, non-Instagram account creation, or availability in Europe. All are very popular. No real innovation over Twitter either, but that's not unexpected. This is excusable in a normal startup MVP, but not when you promote it all over Instagram.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    You are making an assumption that there is a tighter coupling with Instagram's infra than in reality...especially at launch. I could see maybe trending topics as possibly a feature that would be nice to have at launch but the others? The following are my thoughts if I were a PM choosing features. search - What are you going to search for when the app is brand new? I believe we did have user search as I recall using it so you must be referring to content search. DMs - Do we know what their anticipated user projections were going to be? I could see this feature being a worthless endeavor vs other things they could have done if the userbase ended up being small. a web version - These guys are a mobile first company, the large % of users are on mobile, their existing web properties are either in maintenance mode(facebook) or just thin wrappers(instagram). I can see why this wasn't a priority. non-Instagram account creation - Sounds like either this was a way to bypass overhead in their typical new user generation or they felt one click signup from IG would encourage more active users/reduce issues of bots which may not have been thought out at launch. It would be interesting to learn more about this unclear part of the infra. Europe - Even for big company launches they typically american first, likely for the same reasons why we dont see big new tech companies ever launched from Europe anymore: too many little issues dealing with all the different countries in the union, issues with complying with various regulations.