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Google+ also had enormous early growth, but I don’t know anyone who used it beyond a test run. So far it’s been the same with Threads in my circle. Does downlo

Google+ also had enormous early growth, but I don’t know anyone who used it beyond a test run. So far it’s been the same with Threads in my circle. Does downloads really tell us much or is it just a vanity metric?

MattGaiser 3y ago
In my social sphere, most just used it as a test run, but then Twitter became a centre of rage, violence, and politics that the more apolitical ones are spending more time on Threads.
- samtheprogram 3y ago
  In my experience it’s not quite the opposite but quite different. Twitter is fine for apolitical people. They don’t follow the politics. And then Twitter is fine for people of a certain political leaning. Everything else in this space is for people who are political + left enough to want to leave Twitter because they follow enough political things to be annoyed at all.
rvz 3y ago
> Does downloads really tell us much or is it just a vanity metric? It doesn't. Which is why they won't reveal the new daily active users (DAUs) on Threads which is one of the most important metrics on user usage and tells us if they are still sticking to using the platform. The last time I checked it was less than 25M DAUs. Not even the author is using their Threads account in the article as a contact and is still posting more on X than Threads.
brightball 3y ago
Agreed. My foray into threads was pretty much just rage bait.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
The difference is this is tightly coupled with Instagram which is one of the most active networks already and they can easily cross pollinate the two for a long time and keep sucking up people who get fed up with Twitter.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  How is it tightly coupled with Instagram?
  - totetsu 3y ago
    Frictionless importing of following/follower profiles. Frictionless account creation. Threads nudges in instagram feed, and prompts in Instagram menus about unread thread posts..
  - TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
    Instagram shows previews of Threads posts and even sends you notifications about activity on Threads.
  - MattGaiser 3y ago
    Threads shows up in your feed.
refulgentis 3y ago
Yeah there was a certain set of news events that happened over the past couple months that turned X into a cesspool of people intentionally baiting each other and refusing to listen or show humanity. Anecdotally Twitter traffic went _way_ down between 12/14 to 1/14. Seemed like a lot of people went on holiday vacation and didn't feel the need to come back.
acdha 3y ago
The vast majority of Google+’s “growth” came from users of other Google apps who were pushed to convert their Google account to G+ but had no interest in using it otherwise, and they made the new Google account signup process push you into G+ even if you were just there for Gmail, YouTube, etc. They also counted a lot of activity in the apps people actually used as G+ interactions and refused to provide breakdowns for those stats, which suggests true interactions were really low. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-membership-with-brute-force-signup-process/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-... Anecdotally, I move in nerdy circles but maybe 5% of the people I know used G+ at all, ever. If Threads’ reported daily active users count is accurate in the 30M range, it’s already close to Google+ 40M _monthly_ active users near its peak: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/technology/the-plus-in-google-plus-its-mostly-for-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/technology/the-plus-in-go... Threads is not perfect but everyone on there had at least some genuine interest and anecdotally people see far more activity than G+ ever managed. I hear a lot of comments that both Threads and Mastodon tend to have more real interactions, too, and that matches my experience where lower follower counts still translate into more activity.
hn1986 3y ago
The trajectory of Threads has been going up. They reached 100M MAU and that was before the EU launch. I mainly like it for some of the cool communities active there (NBA and photography). and news is pretty good too
hn1986 3y ago
130 million monthly active users.. it's fairly big now https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/threads-now-reaches-more-130-million-monthly-users-says-meta-up-30m-from-q3/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/threads-now-reaches-more-1...

MattGaiser 3y ago

In my social sphere, most just used it as a test run, but then Twitter became a centre of rage, violence, and politics that the more apolitical ones are spending more time on Threads.

samtheprogram 3y ago
In my experience it’s not quite the opposite but quite different. Twitter is fine for apolitical people. They don’t follow the politics. And then Twitter is fine for people of a certain political leaning. Everything else in this space is for people who are political + left enough to want to leave Twitter because they follow enough political things to be annoyed at all.

rvz 3y ago

> Does downloads really tell us much or is it just a vanity metric? It doesn't. Which is why they won't reveal the new daily active users (DAUs) on Threads which is one of the most important metrics on user usage and tells us if they are still sticking to using the platform. The last time I checked it was less than 25M DAUs. Not even the author is using their Threads account in the article as a contact and is still posting more on X than Threads.

brightball 3y ago

Agreed. My foray into threads was pretty much just rage bait.

tracerbulletx 3y ago

The difference is this is tightly coupled with Instagram which is one of the most active networks already and they can easily cross pollinate the two for a long time and keep sucking up people who get fed up with Twitter.

bamboozled 3y ago
How is it tightly coupled with Instagram?
- totetsu 3y ago
  Frictionless importing of following/follower profiles. Frictionless account creation. Threads nudges in instagram feed, and prompts in Instagram menus about unread thread posts..
- TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
  Instagram shows previews of Threads posts and even sends you notifications about activity on Threads.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  Threads shows up in your feed.

refulgentis 3y ago

Yeah there was a certain set of news events that happened over the past couple months that turned X into a cesspool of people intentionally baiting each other and refusing to listen or show humanity. Anecdotally Twitter traffic went _way_ down between 12/14 to 1/14. Seemed like a lot of people went on holiday vacation and didn't feel the need to come back.

acdha 3y ago

The vast majority of Google+’s “growth” came from users of other Google apps who were pushed to convert their Google account to G+ but had no interest in using it otherwise, and they made the new Google account signup process push you into G+ even if you were just there for Gmail, YouTube, etc. They also counted a lot of activity in the apps people actually used as G+ interactions and refused to provide breakdowns for those stats, which suggests true interactions were really low. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-membership-with-brute-force-signup-process/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-... Anecdotally, I move in nerdy circles but maybe 5% of the people I know used G+ at all, ever. If Threads’ reported daily active users count is accurate in the 30M range, it’s already close to Google+ 40M _monthly_ active users near its peak: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/technology/the-plus-in-google-plus-its-mostly-for-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/technology/the-plus-in-go... Threads is not perfect but everyone on there had at least some genuine interest and anecdotally people see far more activity than G+ ever managed. I hear a lot of comments that both Threads and Mastodon tend to have more real interactions, too, and that matches my experience where lower follower counts still translate into more activity.

hn1986 3y ago

The trajectory of Threads has been going up. They reached 100M MAU and that was before the EU launch. I mainly like it for some of the cool communities active there (NBA and photography). and news is pretty good too

hn1986 3y ago

130 million monthly active users.. it's fairly big now https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/threads-now-reaches-more-130-million-monthly-users-says-meta-up-30m-from-q3/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/threads-now-reaches-more-1...