Adding further fuel to the Hatfields and McCoys of social media, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg just dropped a rival microblogging site to Twitter and Elon Musk that is generating enough buzz to make your phone vibrate off the table. In touting itself as the “friendly” version of Twitter, Meta’s Threads looks to gobble up displeased Twitter users with a similar platform, but with the PG-13 style of programming that’s delivered by Meta’s Instagram.
But is it friendlier? Is it better? Is this app even worth my time? What are we doing here? Let’s take an honest look at Threads and see what we are really getting:
It’s Instagram, but with words
Once you download Threads (on your phone, no desktop version yet), you will be prompted to login to your Instagram account, not your Facebook. From there you will be prompted to follow your friends and other accounts based on your Instagram account and you are good to tweet thread your way across the Met-averse. Add (guideline-approved) images, give your thoughts, give your thoughts on other people’s thoughts, spin out into never-ending tangents and rants, basically everything you may have loved from Twitter but with a few exceptions:
No hashtags
That’s right, as of the rollout, Threads does not have hashtags. The almost universal way people share thoughts and ideas on social media platforms is nowhere to be found on Threads. So let’s say that your use of Instagram was minimal at the time of sign up, meaning that when you start a Threads account, and start with 0 followers, and you will have minimal ability to create organic growth outside of directly conversing with popular threads and praying that your content made its way into feeds.
No Discover page
Another complaint with the Threads rollout follows a similar suit as stated above in that there is no Discover page. The easiest way to be discovered on Instagram is not a feature with Threads, thus further limiting a brands exposure to the growing number of the app’s users.
The feed is an algorithm of friends and randoms
Although swearing it will change over time, the current algorithm is a jumbled consortium of people you follow and various pages the good people at Meta think you may want to engage with. As of now, this seems to be the only way your content can be discovered.
Instagram and Threads are (kinda sorta) linked
While using the same login and handle, your Instagram feed of images and your Threads feed are not linked together, meaning you cannot scroll both in one app. This feels frustrating and clunky as it would not be too hard to merge the feeds or provide the option to. On that note, posting images from your IG does not automatically post to your Threads, there is an option to share to your Threads but it is an extra step.
No DM’s. No switching accounts
This has always been a late stage add-on to social media platforms and Threads is no different. No matter how hot a take is, your only outlet to reply or comment is to make it public. The same goes for toggling from a personal and business account, you must log out of one account and fully login (password and everything) into the other account, which feels just unnecessary. As I was playing with Threads on my personal account also, I begun to realize that the algorithm had also glommed on suggested Threads from people similar to who I was following on Stauffer’s Threads page and vice-versa, which also rubbed me the wrong way in terms of privacy.
We at Stauffer are sure that this rollout is not the full offering of what Threads can offer. Assuming the grievances I have aired above are remedied, I foresee Threads being another valuable town square on the internet for opinions and content that sucks up all your personal data for immeasurable profit.
