Meta launches Twitter rival ahead of schedule, Threads goes live

"Hello world" posts are flooding the timeline of this brand new text-based social network.

Image: Meta

Although the countdown shows nearly 14 hours left, the Threads app is now available for download from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store for Android.

As users flock to this Instagram-based spinoff, the joy of posting to a new social media timeline is palpable.

Tech journalist Joanna Stern posted, "Thread doors are open, finally, people like my posts, they like me, they really like me!"

Tech developer Taylor Lorenz asked, "Who will be the first Threads protagonist?"

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said the last few days were really special with everyone—meaning users who had access to Threads before it became public—and explained that the launch will take some time.

he posted. "These apps have been released, although they will take some time to spread, so we will start to see the doors open now, and we hope this will become an open, friendly dialogue platform. If you want this too, the best way Just friendliness."

As of this writing (about half an hour after posting), his post had 2,664 likes and 382 replies.

Image: Apple/Meta

If you install the app, the Threads onboarding flow is instantly linked to your Instagram account and you are encouraged to follow the same account on Threads. This integration avoids the main problem of new social networks: building a social graph from scratch.

The interface is much cleaner than Twitter's, but includes most of the features familiar to Birdsite users: a main timeline of people and companies you follow, the ability to reply, like, retweet, and share individual posts, notifications (with the ability to filter messages from verified accounts replies, mentions, and entries) and search.

Hashtags don't appear to be clickable links. The timeline and search views also include suggested users to follow, which unsurprisingly appear to be verified celebrities.

Aside from the plethora of comments about Twitter and Elon Musk, the surge in launch-related activity has led to complaints about app notifications (which fire whenever an Instagram contact logs in for the first time), and the default timeline seems to be Includes posts from Instagram contacts and people those contacts follow.

Myke Hurley, podcaster and co-founder of Relay FM, writes: "It's far from a complete experience, but I hope it gets more people off Twitter and starts adopting syndicated social media more. Now, I'm more Confidence."

The launch comes at another turbulent time for Twitter, as the site severely restricts access to users and visitors, and the uproar over the past few days has also inspired the beta launch of another Twitter alternative, Spill.

Meta promises that Threads will interoperate with the ActivityPub protocol, the distributed social media system best known for connecting to Mastodon servers. While this ostensibly makes the tech giant's servers on threads.net the largest single node on the network, its implementation remains incomplete.

Not everyone in the "fediverse" (Federal Social Universe) is excited about their new neighbors, with some Mastodon servers announcing that they will not be allied with Threads, mostly due to privacy concerns.

Mastodon developer Eugen Rochko writes, "We expect that Mastodon and Threads will eventually be interoperable, from a technical standpoint, users will be able to follow each other and exchange messages. However, it is up to the operator of the Mastodon server you are using to decide whether Allows communication with Threads."

Image: Apple

As part of the Meta family of apps that includes Facebook and WhatsApp in addition to Instagram, Threads is very hungry for user data. As disclosed in the Apple and Google app stores, the list of information Threads can access includes everything from contacts and location information to web browsing and search activity and other "sensitive" information.

Threads is not launching in the EU due to stricter privacy laws in the EU.

Currently, Mark Zuckerberg is also joining the party.

Replying to some posts from other verified accounts, he explained, "Threads' vision is to create an open, friendly space for public conversation, and we want to take what Instagram did best and create a new kind of conversation around text, ideas, and discussing what's on your mind. experience."

He added, "So glad you're all here on day one and let's build great things together!"