THREADS : TWITTER KILLER

Threads is a dedicated messaging app created by Instagram. It allows users to have private conversations with their close friends on Instagram. The app integrates seamlessly with Instagram’s main platform and offers features such as status updates, auto-status, a camera-centric interface, and enhanced privacy controls. Threads aim to enhance communication and foster intimate connections among a user’s inner circle within the Instagram community.

Meta said messages posted to Threads will have a 500-character limit. Similar to Twitter, users can reply to, repost and quote others’ Threads posts. But the app also blends Instagram’s existing aesthetic and navigation system and offers the ability to share posts from Threads directly to Instagram Stories.

Although there are no ads on the platform just yet, Threads could also ultimately supplement Meta’s core advertising business. Meta’s ad business could use a boost after facing challenges from a broad decline in the online ad market and changes to Apple’s app privacy practices, although, if Twitter’s history is any guide, the format is unlikely to attract as many ad dollars as Meta’s other platforms.

How do you sign up? (And can you leave?)

Users sign up through their Instagram accounts and keep the same username, password and account name, although they can edit their bio to be unique to Threads. Users can also import the list of accounts they follow directly from Instagram, making it super easy to get up and running on the app.

But it’s not quite so easy to leave Threads. While users can temporarily deactivate their profiles via the settings section on the app, the company says in its privacy policy that “your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account.” Some users have also raised concerns about the amount of data that the Threads, like Instagram, can collect about users, including location, contacts, search history, browsing history, contact info and more, according to the Apple App Store.

Where is Threads available?

Threads is available in 100 countries and more than 30 languages via Apple’s iOS and Android, according to the company.