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Is Threads winning the war with X?
- CM30 3y agoNot at the moment, as unfortunate as that may be. Same with Mastodon, BlueSky, Cohost, etc. And the main reason for that is very simple; if there's an interesting new story, discussion, discovery, etc, it's still almost certainly going to be found on Twitter/X first. Or maybe Reddit, Discord, YouTube, etc. I've never seen such stories start out on Threads or other Twitter replacements. I've never learnt about a TV show, film, video game, web project, podcast, site, etc for the first time from a Threads post. The majority of official communications from government agencies and media outlets still end up on Twitter/X first, while the majority of indie/fan project related ones usually end up on something like Discord first. If Threads wants to win, it needs to be the place where these announcements are made. The place where people go first to learn about things, not just where they're reposted a few days later. It also needs to fix discovery a bit too. Twitter/X is already awful for discovery, but there is at least somewhat of a possibility I'll find a new creator who's work hasn't already gone viral. Or normal people to chat with who aren't celebrities in general. Threads feels like it lacks that. It's better now sure, but 99% of the posts I see are from folks that already have thousands or followers or more, and usually from folks that are far more attractive than the norm to boot. The most interesting people are often not models or Instagram celebs, but it's the latter who get suggested to everyone on Threads.
- Laaas 3y agoCompare - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net
- Javalicious 3y agoAlso - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=blueskyweb.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=blueskyweb.org Is there a way to get Mastodon linked news?
- rsynnott 3y agoNot easily. You could run through the big instances (mastodon.online/social, hachyderm etc etc) but there are quite a lot of reasonably large ones, and also some interesting people either use extremely niche ones or have their own single-user instance.
- consumer451 3y agoThis does not actually show posts made on bsky. Those would link to bsky.app. However, there is currently no easy way to read bsky posts without an account. Although this is now a priority for bsky devs.
- graeme 3y agoI tried threads and stopped. It occurs to me though that it’s possible Facebook is building a product not targeted at me. I use Twitter to follow several hyper specialized communities where the info is world class. Threads was kinda entertaining stuff but felt low signal. I’m not a huge instagram user though and that is way bigger than Twitter. If Meta builds instagram/tiktok for text it might be much worse for the sort of submissions HN finds interesting but also see more overall uptake. I noticed Threads still massively outranks twitter in App Store ratings.
- m3kw9 3y agoCare to share some of these communities?
- graeme 3y agoReally depends on your interest. So my list won't be of general interest. But I've found Twitter good for: * Ukraine War coverage (less since Elon took over, he downranked it) * Coronavirus: you can find a lot of scientists discussing new studies * Business info/marketing etc: useful for company owners Haven't found any of these on Threads yet. Threads actually blocks coronavirus searches and redirects to the CDC. So you can't easily find people you would follow on twitter.
- wkat4242 3y agoIf there's anything with a low signal noise ratio it's Twitter. It's tuned so it's ideal for short meaningless bits of info and totally awkward for anything more because of the need to split it into multiple parts which have their own confusing reply threads. There's a reason threadreader exists. Because Twitter just sucks at conveying anything more than "look what I just had for dinner". By design no less.
- calderwoodra 3y agoI didn't quite get what to compare here at first, but now I see it - the whole first page of twitter links are "1 day ago" or younger, while only the first link from threads is that recent.
- nostromo 3y agoYeah it’s pretty telling… The fifth most-recently posted thing on Threads is 77 days old. On “X” it was a few hours ago.
- gumballindie 3y ago> that the app would not “do anything to encourage” the sharing of news Sounds good to me. Funny how news folks complains both when social media shares their content and when it doesnt. The hard reality is that news have become a cesspit of divisive toxicity. Hope threads - not that i would use it - keeps news out.
- porkbeer 3y agoWhile I agree, news is what has kept twitter/x relevant. So it's also a death knell imho. I am open to being wrong. I just dont see threads in the wild and most people dont seem to know it exists. Yet just here on hn ive seen a dozen or more x links today.
- gumballindie 3y agoI dont see it in the wild either, but then again i dont have many friends using tiktok or instagram either. The 100 mil user mark, even if only a small percentage is active is still large. And personally i’d prefer a “quiet” platform - one without politics, without scaremongering, just people sharing cool stuff (not necessarily tech) and having civil conversations about anything but politics. Edit: Oh god ive opened the app and it’s full of pro palestine news (my comment is not about the topic itself but the presence of a huge number of news about it) mixed with random junk. Why have I done this.
- recursivecaveat 3y agoI would recommend you try giving mastodon at least a shot. What I like about it is you can join a server for a specific topic, browse it, and it will be 95% chill posts about the topic.
- gumballindie 3y agoI tried mastodon but it seems to be on the other extreme - too quiet. Perhaps i should look for more servers.
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- Javalicious 3y agoI resonated with Ezra Klein's "exodus shocks" concepts. With Musk at the helm of X, it just seems like there's the periodic random outrage that pushes people to at least try other alternatives (and maybe stop logging into X itself). Some of it sticks. I ended up with a Mastodon account and it just seems much more chill. YMMV I guess.
- madeofpalk 3y agoThere's a step before that - with Musk owning Twitter, the 'market' has clearly seen opportunity for competition that did not exist before. Twitter has been Twitter forever, and Meta never decided to compete with it directly. Until now.
- soneca 3y agoYep. Bluesky is definitely not “winning”, but 3 or 4 fiction writers that I like moved there and now I find a nice place to be. To be honest, if one more cartoonist that I really like and post new art everyday on Twitter moved out of it, I would not use it anymore that about once or twice a month.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y agoThe way I'd say it is that Bluesky and Lemmy are "winning" for me. I wouldn't wish absorbing the eternal September from Twitter and Reddit on an enemy, let alone my own hangouts.
- slashdev 3y agoI’ve been using X the last two months and it’s been quite stable. I don’t see that as a reason to avoid it.
- huytersd 3y agoThey seem to have lost people that I used to follow. Kind of a bummer because I don’t know where they migrated to.
- m3kw9 3y agoIf you are already using twitter, most of your follows are not gonna move to threads because of network effects, the ones that moved exclusively are easily forgotten and likely they have low follower counts and will not sacrifice their network unless they really really hate Elon for some weird reason
- madeofpalk 3y agoThere's a faulty assumption here that you must optimise for number of followers. On Twitter, I personally observed an inverse relationship between my happiness and follower count. The more people that followed me, the less I enjoyed my time on twitter. Besides, there's plenty of other reasons to not use website other than disliking the owner "for some weird reason".
- fooker 3y agoThe more the price of apples increased, more people got divorced.
- MegaDeKay 3y agoPlenty of folks I follow for the war in Ukraine are posting to multiple sites now and that makes me leaving Twitter that much easier should the time come. Posting to multiple sites also increases their network at the same time.
- rumori 3y agoThreads is not winning, it’s not even available in Europe. And that is because of Meta’s general practices regarding privacy. They have to change, but don’t seem to be willing to. Even after an incredible launch in the US they still not playing nice in the EU. Look at the absurdity of the Instagram subscription that popped up this week, just so much arrogance.
- fmajid 3y agoAt the rate Twitter is cutting moderation and spreading Hamas propaganda, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were banned from Europe altogether for DSA violations. Commissioner Breton already warned Musk.
- happytiger 3y agoIt’s inconceivable to me that idiot journalist is asking the question of whether threads is dominating when it’s not even available to Europeans. It’s beyond asinine and suggests some serious hubris.
- happytiger 3y agoLot of meta employees on HN haha
- tedunangst 3y agoNot sure the availability of twitter in Europe is indicative of their compliance with EU privacy laws.
- gotoeleven 3y agoI think the plan is to replace europeans with bots that get defensive about low purchasing power by talking about free healthcare and work-life balance.
- gumballindie 3y ago> it’s not even available in Europe Odd. I am in Europe and it’s clearly accessible.
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- plorkyeran 3y agoI have never been organically sent a link to something on Threads, so AFAICT it's not even winning the war with Mastodon.
- jader201 3y agoAnecdotal for sure, but outside of maybe three threads I’ve seen on HN since the launch, I’ve heard almost zero about Threads. Nobody in my social circle (family, friends, and coworkers) has said a word about it. I still see plenty of X threads shared, though. (Disclaimer: I’m on neither platform. I used to be on Twitter prior to Tweetbot getting the axe, but not since then. Never signed up for Threads.)
- Kye 3y agoYou might be interested to know the Tweetbot people made an app for Mastodon: https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.social/@ivory https://tapbots.social/@ivory
- wfhBrian 3y agoLol, when I read the title it took me a second to even remember what "threads" was... And the obligatory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- grishka 3y agoThreads promised ActivityPub support, and the UI is clearly designed with federation in mind, yet it still hasn't arrived. How so?
- fmajid 3y agoIt was built by a very small skunkworks team and they are struggling to catch up with all the features required by a service with 100M+ users. Large bureaucratic corporations like Meta don’t usually turn on a dime.
- rsynnott 3y agoI’d say they’re trying to figure out an approach which won’t just lead to them being insta-blocked by ~all major instances. They could probably throw something over the wall tomorrow, but they have enough cryptospammers, TERFs, and other undesirables that it would be futile (most instances block very aggressively for cryptospammers in particular; IIRC some instances briefly blocked mastodon.social for that when its moderation fell behind). I’m not sure how they’ll square that circle, honestly.
- jfoster 3y agoBased on Meta's other products, I've already decided I don't want to be on Threads. Facebook & Instagram content is too mind-numbing for me to imagine that Meta want to have a decent level of discourse on their platforms.
- ahallock 3y agoI tried out Threads during its initial rollout and after seeing Gary V and some brands being insufferable on there, I knew it was DOA. They were trying to desperately to make it a thing.
- CharlesW 3y ago> I tried out Threads during its initial rollout… FWIW, the experience is completely different than it was during the gold rush. Even the algorithmic feed is surprisingly good once you mute a few morons.
- happytiger 3y agoKinda like the title of this article…
- _ea1k 3y agoThe one account that I read on threads hasn't posted an update in months. Their twitter is still really active. I'd say this is true for basically everyone that I read on twitter. Does betteridge apply? Yes... yes it does.
- cpeterso 3y agoDo there exist clients that can seamlessly read, cross-post, and reply to multiple social media networks? Something like an RSS feed reader with a unified timeline of posts from any number of networks. Do X and Meta’s terms of service even allow third-party clients there days? I follow some accounts on both Twitter and Mastodon (as a backup in case the account leaves Twitter or is blocked) so such a client would need some smarts to de-duplicate posts that other people are cross-posting.
- rsynnott 3y agoI’m waiting for this before I really start using bluesky; there are some interesting people on it, but I can’t deal with the client. If Ivory supported it, that’d be enough to get me to use it.
- notatoad 3y agothe weirdest thing about Threads, for me, is how much it sucks at threaded posts. replying to your own post on threads doesn't give it any priorities in the UI over other replies, so you can't actually make a thread on Threads. you get your one post, with 240 characters or whatever the limit is, and that's it. anything you try to add to it is getting hidden. it seems to be full of engagement bait, and generally satisfies my need to scroll through a feed of random stuff for a little while, but as far as any actual useful content it's pretty light.
- dangbackup 3y ago[flagged]