Initial Impressions of Threads App: Pros, Cons, and Flaws

The social media landscape has not witnessed a revolution in quite some time. In the late 90s, messaging platforms like Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, and AOL were the go-to places for early internet users. Chatrooms were bustling with activity as people spent hours conversing with others who shared their interests. Additionally, interest-based forums gained popularity, providing a platform for discussions on various hobbies like gardening, wood-crafting, or book reading. However, these platforms were limited in their capabilities, offering little interactivity.

The first major revolution in social media occurred with the launch of MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster in the early 2000s, allowing users to create profiles and interact on both an individual and group level. So you had the best of both worlds as well as a way to share more of yourself. This was also the time when 4Chan and Skype came along. Facebook was also starting, but we’ll get back to that below (in 2004 they were still only available to students at Harvard University).

The next social wave came in the late 2000s, when the platforms we are most familiar with today, such as Twitter, the modern version of Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, and Snapchat, were launched. These platforms changed the way netizens saw social media. It wasn’t just a space where you went to discuss a topic for an hour or just check in on your friends. These were broad engagement oriented platforms. You can now upload photos, post videos, play games (rest in peace Flash plugin), and interact in many unique and quirky ways.

As the companies behind these platforms grew in popularity and registered hundreds of millions of users, their focus shifted from engagement to retention and revenue generation. As a result, although these platforms received major updates on a regular basis, they were always within tried and tested social media technical strategies. With the notable exceptions of Discord in 2015 and TikTok in 2017, we haven’t really seen new platforms threaten these late 2000s platforms.

But things are changing now, or at least seem to be changing. With the emergence of new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, companies are now reimagining the social media experience, where instead of putting the world in a room and then figuring out how to get them to interact, the focus is on creating a variety of unique rooms that today’s population of Internet users can enter and log out if desired. Yes, we’re talking about fedivers (for a layman, it’s a decentralized social media experience where every user is a domain and they can join any social media platform using a database in that domain). But while it’s intriguing in theory, before July 6, 2023, this wasn’t worth discussing because most of the new platforms were still pretty niche.

So what changed? Threads, the latest offering from Meta, the Instagram-based Twitter-like app, has done something unique. It has amassed over 30 million users per day, proving that fediverse is indeed possible as a concept. So when it launched I had to take a look and see what it had to offer.

And this is what I found.

Thread design and user interface

Logging into Threads was easy. All you have to do is tap a few times to log in with your Instagram account, follow your friends on the platform and you’ll be dropped to the front page. All of your information is populated using the information you provide to Instagram.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is the polish of the app, even though it’s new. If I may say, it’s better than Facebook and Instagram The overall interface is quite minimalistic, and everything from fonts and animations to iconography is modern and looks great aesthetically. You will also notice how smoothly you can move from one tab to another and from one page to another.

There are unique animations for page reloading, posting and following new users. In addition to this, you’ll also see new aesthetic elements like little knots on the edges of the threads every time you repost.

But other than that, the rest is unfortunately very similar to Twitter. You have a similar home page where you can see everyone’s posts. You can like, comment or repost them. There is a new sharing plugin that allows you to share a post cross-platform on either Facebook or Instagram stories.

Commenting on a post creates a thread that looks like Twitter, liking or reposting them works the same way as on Twitter. Even the profile view is pretty much the same – there’s a Threads tab for your posts and Replies for comments. There is no tab for media, but it will probably be added soon.

There’s a “follow” tab that’s more like Instagram, and it works the same way. You can add or remove requests (if you are a private profile).

Overall, while Threads doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it does a good enough job of creating a “Twitter-like” experience that somehow feels richer and more immersive.

Properties of yarns

It’s a new app, so the launch features are pretty basic, but it gets the job done. You get a text-based platform inspired by Twitter that can do most of what Twitter can do. You can send text or photos, report, reply, create threads and like them. You can also follow or send follow requests (if the profile is private) and you can accept or decline them on a separate tab.

In addition to that, there are also some ecosystem features. You can share posts directly to Facebook and Instagram stories. And the profile has an Instagram icon on the profile that takes you directly to the person’s Instagram profile.

And we need to address the versatile feature, although it is currently inactive. After joining the platform, you will receive a message saying that decentralized features will be added soon. This means that soon you will be able to use your domain in Threads (your username and mesh) and then you can switch to any other decentralized application (like Mastodon) and start using it seamlessly.

These are basic features and there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. But considering that the biggest responsibility at launch is to present an app that can handle heavy traffic without crashing and still perform basic tasks, it’s not really a big deal.

Threads app: Big misses

While it may not be a big issue, the missing features deserve to be highlighted for any new users planning to join the platform. As of this writing, your profile doesn’t have a separate tab for viewing media like you have on Twitter. Accordingly, there is no possibility to send DM messages, which limits personal interaction significantly. There are also no trends, and no explore tab, so finding new users or content is absolutely difficult.

The algorithm of the platform is also very nascent. If you make a few posts with certain keywords, recommendations will suddenly start showing you that content. This is not so obvious or in front of other Meta platforms.

Finally, there doesn’t seem to be a focus on hosting Reels-style video content, something Twitter is pushing hard for. And finally, we’re still waiting for versatile features that can make or break a platform.

Threads App: Verdict

I have to be honest, I’m pretty torn on Threads. I have joined many new social media platforms in my life, from Orkut, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to Instagram in their early days. I’ve never seen a social media platform that was as polished or ran as smoothly. I’m also a fan of the user interface and minimalistic design.

Ultimately, though, it’s a Twitter clone. It works like Twitter and it gives you the same features as Twitter. Like Instagram or Facebook, it doesn’t have its own USP and that’s the big ugly part. There is no separation at all. The threads do not separate from each other. And this was common to all successful social media apps. Rest failed.

Of course, these are early days and we’ll have to reserve our opinion until the rich features roll out. New features may also be added in the coming days.

But right now, unless you’re someone who’s fed up with Twitter’s erratic practices or you’re a huge fan of Camp Meta, I don’t see why anyone would want to be on a platform that offers the same user base as Instagram and the same features as Twitter. Decentralization is a revolutionary technology, but it’s a nightmare to sell to people who are just looking for a good time online.