There’s a new social media game in town: Meta has launched its new Threads app, an Instagram-based alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter.
Post by @nealaugensteinView on Threads
Shortly after launch, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a welcome video on Instagram: “I think the world needs this kind of friendly community.” Later Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the new app attracted more than 10 million sign-ups in the seven hours after it went live.
WTOP’s Neal Augenstein downloaded the app shortly after it first went live Wednesday evening. Today he’s looking at how Threads is similar and different from Twitter’s microblogging app.
Setting up
First off, Threads is phone-only — there’s no desktop version at the moment. The free app is available in the App Store for iPhones and Google Play for Android phones.
Threads is a companion to Meta’s popular photo-sharing app Instagram. Once you download Threads, with a few clicks you can follow and be followed by all (or some) the people you’re connected with on Instagram. (My Threads handle is NealAugenstein)
Like Twitter, Threads consists of a single feed, which is a combination of posts from people you follow, as well as content that Threads algorithm thinks you’d like. While Twitter offers the choice of choosing between For You and Following, Threads doesn’t, at least initially.
A user’s guide for Threads
The user experience in Threads is very similar to Twitter’s, but with some differences.
Users can create a text post, including a photo or video stored in your camera roll on your smartphone. You can’t take photos or videos while in the Threads app.
A Threads post can contain up to 500 characters of text, compared to Twitter’s limit of 280 characters.
Right now, a Threads post can only include a single photo or video, while Twitter allows creators to include several images.
Like Twitter, a post in Threads can include a link to a news story, or other content. One of the complaints against Instagram is that links can only be added in a post’s caption.
Currently, Threads does not have a private messaging feature to rival Twitter’s Direct Messages.
Many of Instagram’s security and privacy features are available in Threads.
