Threading through lame microblogging experiences

Ah, social media. Love it or hate it, we're all attached to it. We are actively engaging with it right now (at least if you're reading this on LinkedIn you are). I'm sure you've noticed all the hype over Threads the new "Twitter killer" experience? We've heard this a few times since Twitter basically self-imploded its own user base throughout the end of 2022 due to its declining user experience and abusive environment. We're still watching the ripples of that implosion like scientists studying the echos of the Big Bang. Only a short time ago we were all talking about apps like Mastodon, Hive, Bluesky, and Spill to name a few.

Spill on the Apple App Store

It's great to have alternatives. At its peak, Twitter had around 400mil users with maybe three-quarters of that as daily active users (not gonna lie, these numbers are all over the place depending on where/when/how Twitter reported these numbers). Stats also tell us the majority of users are in the US, are ~70% male, almost half the posts come from Gen-Z, and the top 25% of users (by tweet volume) produce around 97% of all tweets on the platform. Finally and maybe most important to what I'll talk about, 80% of Twitter's traffic is on mobile.

Armed with all that info and his own masterful ability to launch and grow successful social apps, Mark Zuckerberg decided to toss Threads into the mix. Let's start with what they got right.

     1. Ridiculously easy signup, if you have Instagram

If you have Instagram you click a single button and BOOM you're signed up with Threads and can begin "posting" in a new app. This simple experience is what has led to its 5-day astronomical rise to 100mil users.

     2. Your Instagram profile comes with you

You can bring over your profile image, bio, and followers. If not all your followers are on Threads when you arrive, it auto-follows them for you when they sign up. This is great, especially for accounts that have already amassed a large audience. Saves you the effort of having to rebuild that following completely from scratch. You can even bring your verification badge along with you if you're one of the chosen few.

     3. It feels like home. 

At first anyway. If you liked pre-Musk Twitter, it feels familiar when you first pop into Threads. The interface has likes, "replies", reposts, and shares already ready to go. It's got a similar layout and icons in their experience to tap into that learned behavior way of navigating Twitter.

Many other apps have struggled with these areas. Mastodon won hearts with its "Stick it to the man! Live in the fediverse" vibe. Never be beholden to a corporation or a crazy man-child again! But Mastodon wasn't ready for the moment.

The signup process was difficult and confusing for many users. You can argue how easy or not it was for you, but if your app's point of entry becomes multiple news stories...you have a problem. The official mobile apps were not well designed and not a big focus at the time of some of the biggest influx of users and there are multiple apps out there (many, much more popular than the official apps) which made choosing one confusing as well. The onboarding experience all around was too clunky. Too many places to lose users along the way. Once in, many loved features weren't in place yet. Plus the nature of the fediverse can mean drastically different experiences across different servers. Note to self: write about the user experience in the fediverse...it's mucky.

Hive, another much-hyped alternative was accidentally duping usernames, frequently hit capacity while people were attempting to signup, lacked moderators, played fast and loose with GDPR and other regulatory compliance, and worst of all had to shut down for multiple days due to critical vulnerabilities. Yikes.

Beyond that, nothing has really caught on like Threads.

"Hello world", advertising hell is here

So what mystical wall is Threads about to run headlong into? First, there's that easy signup thing. Yes, love it. It made me click it. Guilty as charged. But what about a user that doesn't have Instagram? Nope. SOL! Neat, as a brand new user I have to install two apps when maybe I just want one. That feels like an easy "no thank you".

Second, if I decide to delete Threads, I also have to delete my Instagram account! So I personally am stuck with Threads now. I can deactivate, but not delete. Woof.

Third, a lot of the content at this point is advertisers. Think snarky Wendy's posts or new product launches. While occasionally this content was amusing or relevant to some on Twitter, much of the fun or value in Twitter likely won't be present on Threads. A post by Adam Mosseri the Head of Instagram recently stated they have no interest in news or politics.

Threads post by Adam Mosseri explaining how politics and hard news won't be a focus for Threads.

One of the biggest features released by Twitter was their mainstage engagement with active news events. It became a gathering place to discuss, keep up-to-date, and get active (immediate) information from people on scene. This included news events, natural disasters, politics, and weather events. But this came with a large focus on moderation at Twitter. Something Facebook has had a difficult time with in the past and Twitter is now completely uninterested in at all.

Needless to say, users aren't thrilled with this development...

I can't imagine being the product manager reading this.

So why use Threads? Instagram is great for short videos or images. Facebook is where you connect with friends and family. Twitter is basically mud wrestling if mud wrestling was a text-based choose-your-own nightmare. LinkedIn is for professionals. There are tons of ways and places to actually blog or post long-form articles. So I guess Threads is just lame microblogging?

So now we're lame microblogging, sort of

Remember point 3? The part where I said it feels like home....at first. That's very true. The paint is the same. All the bits seem to be in the right place. But just one level deeper that ends. There is no feed curated with your interests and the people you follow. It's not in chronological order. Its everything. It's noisy. At this point, I feel like an AIM chatroom was a better user experience.

There is also a lack of #hashtags. Who doesn't have hashtags nowadays??? You can't filter through the noise to find content related to those "amazing communities" Adam mentioned he was so interested in.

If you want to message someone privately, too bad. Not available.

What if I want to explore content I already interacted with? Nope.

Searching is limited to users only. Not content.

Ok fine, I just want to post a gif about my sad microblogging adventure! Hope you downloaded that and have it stored somewhere first. There isn't any native gif support. Sad panda. That was half my content on Twitter!

A panda wracked with disappointment with Threads' lack of native gif support.

With all that lack of focus on what really makes an experience with a social platform enjoyable and unique, I am left to wonder what all the hype is about over the 100mil signups. I'd be impressed if even 1/8 of those were users that previously didn't use Instagram. I'd be impressed if half those signups remain active 6months from now. You can't grow a social platform based on users from your other social platform, they need at least double or more of those people to be net new, or else what is the point? There is more engaging and entertaining content on Instagram. And it's searchable. And I can see a view of things I'm interested in and actively follow. And I can flood my friend's private messages with Reels!

My final gripe is by all means a silly one. But I feel it's important when building a community in what should be a "fun" app. It also feels important if you want your app to become a verb. A post is called a post. A reply is a...reply. Clicking the heart is a like. If you reshare something it's a repost. I saw a post the other day on Threads (which of course I can't search for and find now!!!) that said:

"What a missed opportunity!"

They went on to say a post could be a thread, a reply could be threading, a reshare a stitch. I keep wanting to say "I threaded that". Dear person whose idea I'm talking about, you're brilliant and I'd love to find you again.

Mastodon had Toots. Twitter has Tweets. Spill has Spills. Threads has...posts. Again I know this seems silly, but it really does build community. Lingo which is easy to learn and feels new is exciting. It makes you feel "in the know". One of the cool kids.

So the question is. Did you do it? Did you click the button? Were you a new signup to both Instagram and Threads or did you already use Instagram? What has your experience been like?