Meta's Threads: First Impressions

On my first sick day in more than three and a half years, I was binge-watching Ancient Aliens and Rookie: Feds, when I found Meta's new app: Threads. Perfect timing! A distraction from my sore throat and congestion.?

I've been on Twitter since 2011, periodically dipping in and out of the platform. I haven’t been thrilled with the recent changes, but since I aggressively curate my feed, I haven’t felt the need to leave. As you all know, I love trying new tech. So the minute I heard about Threads, I was all in, becoming one of the thirty million “Charter Members” who signed up on day one. These are my first impressions.

Instagram has never quite worked for me because I’m more of a words person, who can't reliably find the right visual to go along with my thoughts. In this way, Threads speaks my language.?

Threads gives you 500 characters to play with. That’s a nice sweet spot between the 280 characters of Twitter’s free account and the tomes I tl;dr scroll by on Facebook. Even though I like short-form posts, I often find the character limits on Twitter to be restrictive, especially when I want to include hashtags. Speaking of hashtags—Threads doesn't support them yet. But I'm sure they'll roll out that feature soon. We all know there is no social media without hashtags.?

One thing I like about Threads is how it gave me the option to follow the same accounts I follow on Instagram, which made for a seamless entry into the platform. Threads also presents the option for making an account public or private right up front. I went with public, because that’s how I roll, but I like knowing that those who want more privacy can easily access it.

Threads has a sleek and clean look that appeals to the Mac user in me. The interface is easy to navigate.

When I first dove into my Threads feed, I saw a lot of unfamiliar faces and accounts. Some people aren’t thrilled about that, but for me, it’s a feature, not a bug. I’ve discovered a bunch of new, interesting folks to follow in the past 24 hours. From what I can see so far, Threads appears to promote posts by people who the accounts I’m following have interacted with. Kudos to Threads for helping me expand my network.

Like any social media platform, Threads already has its fair share of noise-makers. In general, I avoid political discussions on social media because they rarely lead anywhere productive. So, when I stumbled upon some "own the libs" accounts, it was easy to just hit “block.”?

Right now, everyone's celebrating that Threads is ad-free. But let's not be naive. We all know Meta is going to monetize the app eventually. The question is how they'll do it while preserving the user experience. I'm curious to see how they strike that balance, because we all want a platform that isn’t a cesspool of negativity.

The media wasted no time in declaring Threads a "Twitter killer." They always love a good rivalry. I want to look at the big picture. Threads shouldn't be judged based on its potential to replace Twitter. We need to look for what will make it unique. Its real value will lie in the ways in which it sets itself apart from Twitter, not in how closely it clones it.

Of course, Elon Musk has already served Meta with a cease and desist order over Threads. Apparently, he thinks the concept of a feed of posts and information from a bunch of people is top secret intellectual property. I hope that lawsuit goes nowhere. We need more innovation in the social media space, even if it comes from the same two monoliths we’ve all come to love-hate. In the spirit of innovation and competition, I’ll probably try Spoutible sometime soon as well.?

I think Threads is off to an exciting start, capturing the attention of millions of users, including me. While it may appear to be a direct Twitter replacement now, it has the potential to carve out its own niche. I can't wait to see how Threads evolves and the direction it takes in the future. I encourage you to try it out! You can find me there at barbara_wilson_arboleda.