6 ms·

Shipping Threads in 5 months

42 points by hn1986 2y ago

BhavdeepSethi 2y ago
TLDR; Reused Instagram code + infra and server driven UI.
- cryptoz 2y ago
  Yeah not sure how that is starting from 0.
  - Archonical 2y ago
    0.999... to 1 development.
  - ulfw 2y ago
    It isn't. Instagram logo and urls still show up in all kinds of random places. Moderation has been a disaster (my account got banned for a week twice for some random person not liking what I wrote. So that's not conducive to being a 'discussion' platform). And now I am starting to see tons of shit Russian bots ("0 Follower accounts with right wing views"). Same as Twitter really.
Spivak 2y ago
Given that the sum total of their four goals is a text based social network that is interoperable with the fediverse wouldn't the natural codebase to start from be Mastadon? I'm sure using IG came with a lot of benefits but given they had to punt on the fediverse interop, their most important thing outside of Threads working, starting with a base that speaks the protocol you want to adopt has got to count for something.
- half-kh-hacker 2y ago
  Speculatively, I think Mastodon being AGPL could have played some role here
- cyberax 2y ago
  Mastodon is not very scalable if you want to host tens of millions of users.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    More so given that Threads has goals of a billion users. Very few companies other than Meta have experience in a scaling a platform to this extent. And especially one that has the capabilities that scale along with it e.g. recommendation, trust & safety moderation etc.
light_hue_1 2y ago
I'm confused. Where's the postmortem on how Threads failed? Why is this talk structured like a victory lap? In a time when users wanted to flee Twitter desperately, they could have launched a clone and likely won. Instead, they "kept it simple". They lacked even the most basic features, to the point where you signed up for Threads and found nothing at all which turned users away. This is a talk about how to launch a successful app!? That seems totally disconnected from reality. No one should be learning any positive lessons from this.
- _2d30 2y ago
  Just looked at the Apple App store and it's #1 in the Free Apps ranking lol
  - petre 2y ago
    Of course it is. Meta likely paid Apple to rank it that way.
    - the_clarence 2y ago
      Good shitposting
- the_clarence 2y ago
  It's a huge success, you're just not paying attention. In terms of feature it's been getting better and better every week since launch. These guys can ship
- yas_hmaheshwari 2y ago
  On the business side, I am with you and I don't use Threads at all (or know anyone in my circle who does) This talk is from a technical perspective - and whatever your thoughts on Threads are, it is a great technical feat to launch something of that scale in 5 months! Can't think of any company that comes close to Meta in the speed of shipping features and products, and Threads app is the best example
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
0->1 Except for the part where Meta used the immense network effects of Facebook and Instagram to repeatedly advertise Threads to their audience and harass them into trying it out. This is more like slowing the 100->0 transition.
- carabiner 2y ago
  It's pretty bad. AOL for 2024. Absolutely braindead users though it's hyper-leftist (read: the anti-Twitter) if you're into that. Riddled with engagement spam and people posting generic questions ("what's a good restaurant in [city]") instead of googling.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Yes, I had to stop using it after most posts were basically complaining about Twitter and Elon. If I wanted to read about those topics, I'd, well, be on Twitter.
  - golergka 2y ago
    Hyper-leftist is anti-twitter now? Last time I checked (about 2 minutes ago), twitter was hyper-leftist itself.
    - mgiannopoulos 2y ago
      People love to complain on the internet. Apparently, Twitter now is the cause of the rise of global fascism.
      - maeil 2y ago
        Apparently, Twitter now is hyper-leftist. [1] [1] The comment you're repling to.
        mgiannopoulos 2y ago
        Yeah, the media [1] disagree ;) [1] https://theconversation.com/from-twitter-to-x-one-year-on-are-white-supremacists-back-221157 https://theconversation.com/from-twitter-to-x-one-year-on-ar...
leoh 2y ago
Haskell piece is fascinating. iirc, they have been using Haskell for many years for content moderation.
- crabmusket 2y ago
  Classic article on this: https://engineering.fb.com/2015/06/26/security/fighting-spam-with-haskell/ https://engineering.fb.com/2015/06/26/security/fighting-spam...
blahgeek 2y ago
I'm not impressed. I can totally imagine single person building the app under 5 months. Well, of course, it will not have the best UI or recommendation algorithm or marketing stuff, but I don't think those are in the critical path on the building of the app. I expected that a company like Meta can build apps like this in weeks. It got me thinking that, in terms of building software 0 to 1, maybe the scalability of head count is surprisingly low.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wiseowise 2y ago
  > I expected that a company like Meta can build apps like this in weeks. Why not a day?
fulafel 2y ago
Server side rendering: > One technique we use to tune the experience quickly was to make iteration in the product itself very easy. We did this using server driven UI. In a traditional client-server model, the client is responsible for everything about how the data is laid out on-screen. The server is just middleware pulling data out from stores. What we did was for the core interfaces which showed a list of posts, we instead sent down a full view model, which told the client exactly how to render it. > This meant that when we were experimenting on the call to action and the reply bar, or when and how we show different reply face files, we could do that with just a code change on the server, which only takes a couple of hours to roll out and takes effect on all platforms. > This let us iterate on the core Threading UI very quickly in the early days.
xnx 2y ago
6 months ago. 192 comments: https://www.infoq.com/news/2024/04/meta-threads-instagram-5-months/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2024/04/meta-threads-instagram-5-...
- jsnell 2y ago
  I think you meant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987466

42 points by hn1986 2y ago

BhavdeepSethi 2y ago

TLDR; Reused Instagram code + infra and server driven UI.

cryptoz 2y ago
Yeah not sure how that is starting from 0.
- Archonical 2y ago
  0.999... to 1 development.
- ulfw 2y ago
  It isn't. Instagram logo and urls still show up in all kinds of random places. Moderation has been a disaster (my account got banned for a week twice for some random person not liking what I wrote. So that's not conducive to being a 'discussion' platform). And now I am starting to see tons of shit Russian bots ("0 Follower accounts with right wing views"). Same as Twitter really.

Spivak 2y ago

Given that the sum total of their four goals is a text based social network that is interoperable with the fediverse wouldn't the natural codebase to start from be Mastadon? I'm sure using IG came with a lot of benefits but given they had to punt on the fediverse interop, their most important thing outside of Threads working, starting with a base that speaks the protocol you want to adopt has got to count for something.

half-kh-hacker 2y ago
Speculatively, I think Mastodon being AGPL could have played some role here
cyberax 2y ago
Mastodon is not very scalable if you want to host tens of millions of users.
- threeseed 2y ago
  More so given that Threads has goals of a billion users. Very few companies other than Meta have experience in a scaling a platform to this extent. And especially one that has the capabilities that scale along with it e.g. recommendation, trust & safety moderation etc.

light_hue_1 2y ago

I'm confused. Where's the postmortem on how Threads failed? Why is this talk structured like a victory lap? In a time when users wanted to flee Twitter desperately, they could have launched a clone and likely won. Instead, they "kept it simple". They lacked even the most basic features, to the point where you signed up for Threads and found nothing at all which turned users away. This is a talk about how to launch a successful app!? That seems totally disconnected from reality. No one should be learning any positive lessons from this.

_2d30 2y ago
Just looked at the Apple App store and it's #1 in the Free Apps ranking lol
- petre 2y ago
  Of course it is. Meta likely paid Apple to rank it that way.
  - the_clarence 2y ago
    Good shitposting
the_clarence 2y ago
It's a huge success, you're just not paying attention. In terms of feature it's been getting better and better every week since launch. These guys can ship
yas_hmaheshwari 2y ago
On the business side, I am with you and I don't use Threads at all (or know anyone in my circle who does) This talk is from a technical perspective - and whatever your thoughts on Threads are, it is a great technical feat to launch something of that scale in 5 months! Can't think of any company that comes close to Meta in the speed of shipping features and products, and Threads app is the best example
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

0->1 Except for the part where Meta used the immense network effects of Facebook and Instagram to repeatedly advertise Threads to their audience and harass them into trying it out. This is more like slowing the 100->0 transition.

carabiner 2y ago
It's pretty bad. AOL for 2024. Absolutely braindead users though it's hyper-leftist (read: the anti-Twitter) if you're into that. Riddled with engagement spam and people posting generic questions ("what's a good restaurant in [city]") instead of googling.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Yes, I had to stop using it after most posts were basically complaining about Twitter and Elon. If I wanted to read about those topics, I'd, well, be on Twitter.
- golergka 2y ago
  Hyper-leftist is anti-twitter now? Last time I checked (about 2 minutes ago), twitter was hyper-leftist itself.
  - mgiannopoulos 2y ago
    People love to complain on the internet. Apparently, Twitter now is the cause of the rise of global fascism.
    - maeil 2y ago
      Apparently, Twitter now is hyper-leftist. [1] [1] The comment you're repling to.
      - mgiannopoulos 2y ago
        Yeah, the media [1] disagree ;) [1] https://theconversation.com/from-twitter-to-x-one-year-on-are-white-supremacists-back-221157 https://theconversation.com/from-twitter-to-x-one-year-on-ar...

leoh 2y ago

Haskell piece is fascinating. iirc, they have been using Haskell for many years for content moderation.

crabmusket 2y ago
Classic article on this: https://engineering.fb.com/2015/06/26/security/fighting-spam-with-haskell/ https://engineering.fb.com/2015/06/26/security/fighting-spam...

blahgeek 2y ago

I'm not impressed. I can totally imagine single person building the app under 5 months. Well, of course, it will not have the best UI or recommendation algorithm or marketing stuff, but I don't think those are in the critical path on the building of the app. I expected that a company like Meta can build apps like this in weeks. It got me thinking that, in terms of building software 0 to 1, maybe the scalability of head count is surprisingly low.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wiseowise 2y ago
> I expected that a company like Meta can build apps like this in weeks. Why not a day?

fulafel 2y ago

Server side rendering: > One technique we use to tune the experience quickly was to make iteration in the product itself very easy. We did this using server driven UI. In a traditional client-server model, the client is responsible for everything about how the data is laid out on-screen. The server is just middleware pulling data out from stores. What we did was for the core interfaces which showed a list of posts, we instead sent down a full view model, which told the client exactly how to render it. > This meant that when we were experimenting on the call to action and the reply bar, or when and how we show different reply face files, we could do that with just a code change on the server, which only takes a couple of hours to roll out and takes effect on all platforms. > This let us iterate on the core Threading UI very quickly in the early days.

xnx 2y ago

6 months ago. 192 comments: https://www.infoq.com/news/2024/04/meta-threads-instagram-5-months/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2024/04/meta-threads-instagram-5-...

jsnell 2y ago
I think you meant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987466