What is Instagram’s New Social Media Platform Threads?

If you are an avid user of Instagram, chances are you have heard about Threads – the company’s latest venture into a standalone messaging app. Much like other chat and social media platforms out there today, users can send direct messages as well as share photos, videos and links with their friends, followers and audience. But what makes Threads stand apart from other platforms? In this blog post, we will explore what Threads is and how to use it.

What is Threads?

Mark Zuckerberg has finally responded to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover with a new app of his own. The CEO of Meta has launched a new application called Threads that has garnered 10 million users in its first seven hours of operation.

Threads is similar to Twitter, a brief text-based app where users can share thoughts, stories, and links to topics. When opening the application, its feed presents posts, referred to as threads, from famous personalities, influencers, public figures, and regular users who share their thoughts and updates with the public.

Like Twitter, users can repost comments or posts and engage in discussions. On Threads, users can create posts that are limited to 500 characters. These posts can include links, photos, and videos that have a maximum duration of five minutes. Threads allow users to sign in using their Instagram accounts, making the process seamless and convenient. The app will ask users if they want to follow the same accounts as their Instagram profile. However, users have the option to ignore Instagram’s suggestions and follow different or new people on the Threads app.

Twitter tends to be a platform for following public figures and staying up-to-date on current events, whereas Instagram is often used for personal connections. We believe Threads will continue this trend.

How to use Threads

Users can download the app from the app store and log in using their Instagram account to access Threads. They can also choose to transfer their friends and followings to the new platform and customise their profile. Threads include essential accessibility features such as screen reader support and image descriptions generated by AI. The app’s feed displays posts from accounts you follow and recommended content from creators you haven’t discovered yet.

To begin sharing content, users can either create a post or comment on existing posts to discuss various topics. Meta has stated that Threads has been created with a range of features that encourage constructive and positive discussions. To add to this, users can manage who can mention or reply to them and filter out keywords they don’t want to see.

Threads’ Features

Below is a brief overview of the features available in Threads:

• Posts can include links, photos and videos that have a maximum duration of five minutes.
• You can create posts with a maximum of 500 characters.
• Users can repost existing comments and posts.
• AI-generated image descriptions.
• Threads recommend similar content you may like.
• Users have the option to filter out individuals to whom they do not wish to respond to.
• Users can filter unwanted keywords from their view.

What’s Next?

The company plans to enhance engagement on its app by making it compatible with ActivityPub (the World Wide Web Consortium, responsible for the open standards that power the modern web).

By incorporating the ActivityPub protocol, Threads can now interact with other apps like Mastodon and WordPress. This opens up new possibilities for connections that are currently unavailable on most social platforms.

Threads is rolling out the app to over 100 countries on both IOS and Android platforms. Once the platform hits the milestone of 1 billion users, Zuckerberg stated that the company will consider monetisation. It is unclear how Meta plans to integrate these advertisements into the app. However, we anticipate that the approach will be similar to Twitter’s ad display.

In the future, updates may feature recommendations within the feed and an enhanced search function that allows real-time tracking of topics and trends.

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