Meta’s Twitter competitor ‘Threads’ to launch on Thursday

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU–

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is all set to launch an app on Thursday titled ‘Threads’, aimed at being an alternative to Twitter.

A screenshot preview of Threads on Apple’s App Store

According to Apple’s App Store preview in the US, the app is expected to launch on July 6, and will be available for download for users.

According to a report by US-based tech portal TechCrunch, ‘Threads’ will be linked to Instagram and could have a leg up on Twitter, since it directly imports a user’s Instagram followers and following lists.

Instead of rebuilding a community from scratch, Threads users will already have their existing Instagram circles there from the get-go, Tech Crunch report said.

The App Store description read, “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

According to experts, though Threads is closely related to Instagram, it will be its own app. Though not much can be extracted from the App Store listing, it appears that users may like, comment on, repost, and share content.

The App Store pictures also reveal that users may choose who can comment to your posts: everyone, individuals you follow, or only those named in the post.

The app’s goal is to bring together communities to debate various subjects and connect with favourite creators.

Threads, which blends Instagram and Twitter aspects, is likely to draw both existing Instagram users and new people when it launches.

According to TechCrunch, Meta’s side projects haven’t always been a success. It discontinued apps such as the anonymous teen app ‘tbh’, the Cameo-like app ‘Super’, the Nextdoor clone ‘Neighbourhoods’, the couples app ‘Tuned,’ the student-focused social network ‘Campus’, the video dating service ‘Sparked’, and others in recent years.

Threads, on the other hand, is launching at the ideal time to capitalize on Twitter’s continuous hiccups. Consumers must decide if they want Meta to control yet another aspect of their social media experience.

Twitter has blocked unregistered users from being able to see tweets and implemented rate limits for those who are logged in that could block you after reading hundreds or thousands of posts in a day, as per Verge.

the Elon Musk-owned Twitter is also introducing big modifications to TweetDeck, a tool used by many journalists and social media professionals, just as the app began to malfunction, allegedly due to scrapers scouring the web for data to feed AI models. TweetDeck is set to become a paid feature in roughly a month, Verge reported.

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