Threads: Facebook Reveals Launch Date Of Twitter Rival App
Officially called "Threads", the new app is described on Apple's app store as "Instagram's text-based conversation app."
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Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, on Tuesday, July 4 announced that it will launch its new application termed as the biggest competitor to Twitter.
Officially called "Threads", the new app described on Apple's app store as "Instagram's text-based conversation app," was made available for pre-order on Apple's App Store as well as the Google Play Store and listed as "Threads, an Instagram app."
According to a date teaser seen by Viral Tea, the app will be launched on Thursday, July 6.
The teaser on Instagram works when one types “threads” into the search box (or a number of other keywords) causing a ticket icon to appear on the search bar. When one taps it, a spinning ticket appears to show your Instagram username alongside a local launch time, which in this case is set for 5 pm Kenyan time.
A screenshot of the preview of the Threads app to be launched on July 6, 2023. /APPLE STORE
Meta promised to make the Threads app a central point for communities worldwide to come together to discuss everything ranging from current and future trends in our day-to-day lives.
"Say more with Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation app. 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 favourite 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," the app was described as saying in the app store.
Both App Store and Google Play Store listings show a similar series of screenshots of the app, showing how you can log in with your Instagram handle, find the accounts you follow on Instagram on the new app, and post in an interface similar to Twitter.
The Verge reported that one of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor during a companywide meeting on Thursday, June 8.
The new standalone app will harness the power of Instagram and integrate seamlessly with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol, in what is viewed as Meta's plan to change the digital space radically.
That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.
Leveraging Instagram's robust account system, the new app sets the stage for a seamless onboarding experience, automatically populating user information and ensuring a smooth transition.
Moreover, users will be able to log in using their existing Instagram credentials, which means that it will be trivially easy to join in with Mastodon instances around the world.
Chris Cox, Meta's Chief Product Officer, termed Threads as Meta's response to Twitter which will use Instagram’s account system to automatically populate a user’s information.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” Cox said, throwing direct shade at Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter, to cheers from the audience.
Musk had worsened the uproar on Twitter by announcing on Tuesday that the revamped popular user dashboard, TweetDeck will go behind a paywall in 30 days' time, in a move many believe was aimed at forcing users to pay monthly Twitter Blue subscriptions.
On Saturday, July 1, Musk applied temporary reading limits which vary depending on the verification status of the user, with those verified under the Twitter Blue system being the biggest beneficiaries of the latest controversial feature.
Verified users were initially revealed to be temporarily limited to reading 6,000 posts a day, compared to their unverified counterparts who were temporarily limited to 600 posts a day, 10 times less than their blue-tick counterparts, while new unverified accounts were restricted to a temporary limit of 300 a day.
Later, the billionaire increased the amount to 10,000, 1,000 and 500 for verified, existing and new users, respectively, though this has done little to stop the uproar that ensued following the directive.
Musk said in his original tweet that the change is temporary and was put in place to "address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation". He also noted that the move seeks to prevent third-party applications from accessing data off the platform.
The third-party applications included Artificial Intelligence (AI) apps that rely on internet data to analyse human behaviour and enable problem-solving techniques.
Since then, Truth Social, an app launched by former United States (US) President Donald Trump, rose to prominence after millions of users migrated to the platform, including Kenyans on Twitter.
