A few weeks ago, tech enthusiasts got very exciting news: Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) challenged Elon Musk (Twitter) in a cage match. Was this a metaphor for a text-based social media war? We never know with these two, but the truth is that the company behind Facebook and Instagram has just released Threads, the long-awaited social media app that’s here to compete with Twitter, so let’s have a look!
Threads is a text-based social media app, very similar to Twitter: users can post text content aiming to bring communities together and discuss any topic, from the news, ideas, opinions... Anything! But Threads is not limited to text posts, but also pictures and videos, and here’s where we find the first differences with Twitter: while the blue bird limits tweets to 280 characters, in Threads, you can go a bit further with 500 characters; and the same happens with videos, with up to 5 minutes of footage allowed in Threads.
As we could expect from Meta, an Instagram account is needed to use Threads, which actually is a great idea to protect your username and prevent others from choosing it. Of course, you have the usual features in a social media, such as following other users, replying to their threads, and blocking and reporting them. At the moment, it seems your feed in Threads shows a mix of people you follow and suggestions from the algorithm - which is a fantastic way of discovering new people to follow! The arrival of Threads seems perfectly timed these days when frustration on Twitter appears to be picking up due to the restrictions on the number of tweets users can see, so... do you think Threads has a chance to take over? Give it a try and let us know what you think on our social media channels!