When the app basically amounts to a new tab for an existing dominant social network, I don’t think this is too interesting. It’s almost like reporting “30M people opened the Facebook Marketplace tab” or something. I signed in, took one look at a Mr Beast tweet on my homepage, wondered “why would I want to look at this?” and then closed the app. But I count as a signup!
>one look at a Mr Beast tweet on my homepage, wondered “why would I want to look at this?"
I would think you'd always expect the most popular stuff to be recommended to you until you have some data in the app for the recommendation engine to go off of?
It will be interesting what their Daily Average Use or Monthly Average Use looks like in a month. It's hard for successful firms to rediscover the skills needed to launch a new product that is not an offshoot or derivative of existing offerings. I think the more new competitors to Twitter that emerge the less likely it is than any gain critical mass to challenge as a viable replacement. But nothing lasts forever so it will be educational to watch.
I really want the old pre-musk, before blue checkmarks, Twitter back so I've been trying to give it a real go. Something's gotta fill that void I have now. It can't be Twitter, it is so terrible now. Bluesky and Mastadon just haven't done it for me either.
yeah, everyone and every corporate PRs are signing up to secure their userid for fear of squatting but... not sure if there is more to it.
btw, it seems across-platform squatting is becoming increasingly worsening problem. horrible people just take IDs they've seen elsewhere, just-like-that.
Any non-invite launch will peak heavily to start, and drop very quickly after. One thing I'd be very curious about is what their WAU will be a month from now. This is the death knell for any social network - can you get ongoing engagement instead of just "Testing this new platform for the first time, here's a dog pic" type posts?
One thing that worries me for their longevity is that they don't actually offer any tangible user benefit. Right now their biggest sales pitch is that they're "not twitter". Many of those users who were looking for a solid replacements have moved to mastodon already, so it'll be interesting to see if they have long term stickiness.
Still that doesn't discount that this is a massive amount of users on day 1. Big props to the team!
Usually I'm pretty judgmental about moves like this, but despite the limited feature set, I think the execution here is impressive. Solid UI, easy to follow accounts, and basic UX interactions just work.
The only "gotcha" (and it's a massive one) that I've seen are the privacy implications. If they take a step back on that, this could be a legitimate threat to Twitter in a few months time—especially if they establish a healthy release pace.
They basically want you to sign the rights to your life away in the form of data collection. That seems to be their business model here so I don't think they are going to take a step back.
The sad part is the average person will likely continue to not care. I can only hope the advertising industry gets destroyed or at least decimated. Maybe once mega corporations realize advertising isn't driving the kind of value that they think they will pull back spending. Thus making the ad driven business not financially viable and killing facebook and the like.
The huge issue for me right now is there's no way to look at just the accounts you follow. Without that it's just as bad as the For You page on twitter which isn't great. It's the same issue making me hate Instagram at the moment you can only disable suggested posts in your feed 30 days at a time.
I think the promise of threads is exactly what many people want. Hopefully the product improves to meet the expectations. Some things I'd like to see:
1. Native notes like feature for long form posts I can embed and share. I cannot stand the tweets threads of (n/27) about a topic.
2. Topic based feeds. Whether it's hashtags or some other type of categorization process. I think I read on HN the other day a twitter engineer had come up with something like that but it never got buy in from the decision makers. This would also help filter out things I don't want to see more broadly than manually muting users.
3. Enabling the option to only see verified accounts.
4. Private threads. Threads where you can tag an audience where only they can see the posts and replies. This would be a form of DM that isn't just another chat app.
My biggest issue with Threads is that search only searches profiles.
What was Twitter’s “magic” to me was that search was for tweets.
So you could hear about a live event happening and in near-time find information about it and people who were there or knowledgeable about the event.
My first exposure to this was the Atlanta Gas Shortages in 2008 and it was when the hashtag really came into its prime as a way to quickly find relevant content.
Threads has none of that. Try searching for the “Tour De France”. This morning when I did that I only got two profiles. This kills discoverability and the ability to follow the zeitgeist.
If Threads changes search to index content then it could work. But until then it’s just bland with its attempt at using an algorithm to spoon feed you content without your ability to control what you want to see.
Because even Zucks FB empire isn't as toxic and shittified (yet) as Twitter and Reddit have become. Plus, Zuck ate cake last year with metaverse, and FB has redeemed themselves slightly with open source ai. Elon on the other hand is an egotistical billionaire that thinks the only way he can go is up, so it's nice to see people with big egos fail, even just a little. Hopefully Spez is next.
I'm not a social media guy, I'm not going to use threads probably ever, and I understand that Threads is basically just an appendage out of Insta...
But I still say hats off to the devs for making a product that scaled so well so quickly. How many day 1 launches fail due to servers buckling under the load? Props to you guys for a technical job well done.
to be fair, if load is just shared between Instagram servers, a lot of people are probably testing out threads and using Instagram less today. Though, I imagine twitters usage is dropping like a fly. How they retain any advertisers after this, I can't imagine.
Never heard of Threads until seeing this post. Not sure if the home page is broken, or if it is just utterly unhelpful in learning more about this app. It seems like the goal is to get you to install the app to find out. I'm giving it a shot, so I guess it worked.
Are there any good lists of scientific, academic, hacker-news type people to follow? Was hoping to see Yann LeCun at least, but so far it’s just Mr. Beast, etc.
I signed up out of curiosity, but just like my instagram/tiktok/Mastadon/whetever accounts, they are just... there.
People like me count as a signup, but active users after the hype dies down will matter more.
I stick to youtube even for shorts, because its content/recommendations are much better than tiktok/instagram reels (I could spend time time curating it, but why other when Youtube has already done it for me?)
Same for twitter, already curated with multiple lists setup for me to browse depending on topic, I am not going to do the same on threads/bluesky/mastadon, ain't nobody got time for that.
Something drastic will have to happen for me to switch, but it's unlikely.
Then again I am in the wrong demographic. I guess its the age group thing, I am in my mid-30's, a Gen-whatever we are called.
New kids probably who are hyped on instagram and tiktok are probably already telling us OK boomer and making leet memes on threads, and we will just look on in confusion.
I will believe Threads is real when people start to ratio each other on it.
____
Prophecy: usage will split and depending on the social/cultural/commercial sphere, people will start posting on the relevant platform. If you regularly post on instagram, you will append threads into your workflow.
News twitter will NOT be following to threads. Food twitter will, and stuff like that.
I actually like it better, if only because they have nested threads like HN and Reddit which makes way more sense than twitters single thread replies. They definitely need better search and hashtags, but for day 0 launch it's not too shabby.
[+] [-] jitl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|2 years ago|reply
I would think you'd always expect the most popular stuff to be recommended to you until you have some data in the app for the recommendation engine to go off of?
[+] [-] skmurphy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rosywoozlechan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quadrature|2 years ago|reply
They haven't implemented a follower feed yet, but it is in the works.
[+] [-] numpad0|2 years ago|reply
btw, it seems across-platform squatting is becoming increasingly worsening problem. horrible people just take IDs they've seen elsewhere, just-like-that.
[+] [-] lapcat|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36612615 Threads has 10M sign ups in seven hours
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36610716 Threads hits 5M signups in the first four hours
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36609632 Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours
[+] [-] jsbisviewtiful|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] post-it|2 years ago|reply
5M -> 10M = 2x
10M -> 30M = 3x
Counting at exponential intervals is fine and notable.
[+] [-] jjcm|2 years ago|reply
One thing that worries me for their longevity is that they don't actually offer any tangible user benefit. Right now their biggest sales pitch is that they're "not twitter". Many of those users who were looking for a solid replacements have moved to mastodon already, so it'll be interesting to see if they have long term stickiness.
Still that doesn't discount that this is a massive amount of users on day 1. Big props to the team!
[+] [-] rglover|2 years ago|reply
The only "gotcha" (and it's a massive one) that I've seen are the privacy implications. If they take a step back on that, this could be a legitimate threat to Twitter in a few months time—especially if they establish a healthy release pace.
[+] [-] izzydata|2 years ago|reply
The sad part is the average person will likely continue to not care. I can only hope the advertising industry gets destroyed or at least decimated. Maybe once mega corporations realize advertising isn't driving the kind of value that they think they will pull back spending. Thus making the ad driven business not financially viable and killing facebook and the like.
[+] [-] rtkwe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cute_boi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfuller|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bedobi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattboardman|2 years ago|reply
1. Native notes like feature for long form posts I can embed and share. I cannot stand the tweets threads of (n/27) about a topic.
2. Topic based feeds. Whether it's hashtags or some other type of categorization process. I think I read on HN the other day a twitter engineer had come up with something like that but it never got buy in from the decision makers. This would also help filter out things I don't want to see more broadly than manually muting users.
3. Enabling the option to only see verified accounts.
4. Private threads. Threads where you can tag an audience where only they can see the posts and replies. This would be a form of DM that isn't just another chat app.
[+] [-] warning26|2 years ago|reply
I’m really hoping that this will be the push needed to make ActivityPub social networking go mainstream.
[+] [-] dddrh|2 years ago|reply
What was Twitter’s “magic” to me was that search was for tweets.
So you could hear about a live event happening and in near-time find information about it and people who were there or knowledgeable about the event.
My first exposure to this was the Atlanta Gas Shortages in 2008 and it was when the hashtag really came into its prime as a way to quickly find relevant content.
Threads has none of that. Try searching for the “Tour De France”. This morning when I did that I only got two profiles. This kills discoverability and the ability to follow the zeitgeist.
If Threads changes search to index content then it could work. But until then it’s just bland with its attempt at using an algorithm to spoon feed you content without your ability to control what you want to see.
Shameless link to the thread where I first put these thoughts down: https://www.threads.net/t/CuW77iEuquK/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA...
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Lex-2008|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdamJacobMuller|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laomai|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgrin91|2 years ago|reply
But I still say hats off to the devs for making a product that scaled so well so quickly. How many day 1 launches fail due to servers buckling under the load? Props to you guys for a technical job well done.
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denvaar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|2 years ago|reply
We can stop posting these now? There's plenty of discussion in the other two or three threads (pun intended)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36609632
[+] [-] svaha1728|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cvhashim04|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcongo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcongo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nmcela|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryzvonusef|2 years ago|reply
People like me count as a signup, but active users after the hype dies down will matter more.
I stick to youtube even for shorts, because its content/recommendations are much better than tiktok/instagram reels (I could spend time time curating it, but why other when Youtube has already done it for me?)
Same for twitter, already curated with multiple lists setup for me to browse depending on topic, I am not going to do the same on threads/bluesky/mastadon, ain't nobody got time for that.
Something drastic will have to happen for me to switch, but it's unlikely.
Then again I am in the wrong demographic. I guess its the age group thing, I am in my mid-30's, a Gen-whatever we are called.
New kids probably who are hyped on instagram and tiktok are probably already telling us OK boomer and making leet memes on threads, and we will just look on in confusion.
I will believe Threads is real when people start to ratio each other on it.
____
Prophecy: usage will split and depending on the social/cultural/commercial sphere, people will start posting on the relevant platform. If you regularly post on instagram, you will append threads into your workflow.
News twitter will NOT be following to threads. Food twitter will, and stuff like that.
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DueDilligence|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]