I have been covering the latest news about Instagrams twitter rival from March. In march, The first update about this Instagram Threads app came out in March when Alessandro Paluzzi announced it as an app named "Barcelona".

 

Near the end of April, Alessandro shared another new leaked picture of Instagram's threads app. You can view the platform images from him in this twitter thread.

Looking back at what Alessandro shared at that time, he was sharing all the right components of Instagram threads app. Here is an example below of what he shared and the official "Threads" app invite from Instagram.

 

 

After that updates about Instagram threads app were slowly down as Twitter picked its growth pace back up. Elon hired a new CEO and things were looking good. For almost two weeks in the starting of May, Instagram was silent about this new app launch.

 

Then, we got a new update from Lia Haberman, she runs similar newsletter like The social Juice  covering social media updates and influencer news. She shared new updates about this threads app and confirmed that the "Threads" was launching in June.

 

After that we had numerous amount of Instagram updates that I covered here in my social media updates post.

The launch of this app picked fire when Elon Musk announced tweet reading limit for all users. That announcement freaked audiences out requesting the launch of this new twitter rival app from Meta "Threads from Instagram".

And this morning I shared on Instagram story the official announcement from Instagram's CEO Adam Mosseri the news about launch of Threads app on Thursday.

 

What is Instagram Threads App?

 

Instagram's Thread app is a new meta platform built for users to share text based conversations and ideas with each other. Many might call it a twitter replica but it will become more than twitter copy.

 

 

Why? As Threads, an app from Instagram is going to have far better integration and community building options. Twitter also offers a lot but a recent announcement of them requiring sign-in first to view tweets is making a huge impact. As Twitter making these integration changes is impacting traffic from google to twitter website.

 

Not a good sign, as users join the Instagram threads app and they launch embedding threads feature. The new platform can become a twitter replacement from most news publication that site twitter conversations in blogs.

 

And also twitter has been going against substack and few other websites for a while making their core creators unhappy. If Meta's new text app "threads" becomes a likely replacement. This twitter copy will soon take over the original app.

 

Am I being too optimistic? I'm not. If all that doesn't happen and twitter fixes their platform. This app will have a hard time and the reason why is simple.

 

Conversational apps like Twitter & reddit have built a culture that is hard to break. Plus, twitter users have unique personalities and they are known from twitter those core creators & users will are unlikely to join Threads app.

 

Now, I am being too negative. I'm not. I remain neutral, some hate meta, some hate twitter. The winner will be hard to define. At the end of the day, people will join Instagram's new thread based on their preferences. Talking about platform preferences, Here are the latest known feature of Threads app.

 

A list of Alternative to Threads App

For people wanting to tap into user generated-conversation, You will find these alternatives to threads app really engaging:

1. Twitter
2. Bluesky
3. Mastodon
4. spill app
5. Reddit

 

Instagram Threads App Features

From Lia haberman's interview and the latest updates from the verge  here's what I know about Instagram's new Threads app.

 

Instagram's threads app has a new official account called @threadsapp and on their official website called threads.net  you will be able to download the app on Thursday (6th July)

 

Instagram's Threads app is decentralised with Instagram and that makes inviting your followers & friends to threads app easier than ever.

 

1. You will be able to easily sign-in using your Instagram login details.
2. You can connect & invite the existing instagram followers with a click.
3. Your account details like verification and handle can be easily accessed on threads app. (not completely confirmed, as on the threads invite card user have different user codes)
4. Account Discovery will be very easy as the existing followers on  IG are likely to see your profile when they search similar name or niche.

 

 

Common Content Features

 

1. Twitter like multiple tweet threads feature is the main highlight of the platform.
2. The current character limit of a single tweet is known to be around 500 characters.
3. Embedding features like link sharing, Images & Videos is also available.

 

Content Preference Features

 

1. The content preferences you had will be moved to Threads app, nothing highly irrelevant will be shown.
2. Blocked accounts on Instagram will remain hidden on Threads app.
3. Similar content guidelines and policies are likely to regulated on Threads.
4. The words and posts you have requested to be hidden on your Instagram account, will remain hidden on this app too.
5. Moderation & content reporting features will also exist on this app.

 

Are these feature tempting to you or regular? My bias here says I love a text based app as I have 5k followers on IG and mostly I have big captions under my Instagram posts.

 

It would be great to have a visual image about the topic and then I could move the audience to Threads app for text based reading. Many others I know will be planning to do the same.

 

Latest News about Instagram "Threads App"

 

Instagram CEO Announces

Adam mosseri officially announced the launch of this app few hours ago through his Instagram broadcast.

Jack Dorsey is pointing out the privacy issues.

 

 

Threads App Invite

When you search “threads” on Instagram. If you are in UK, US or certain parts of EU. You will find your IG account threads app card animation. You can find the tutorial to get invite mentioned in the post below. You only need to search either "threads" or "P92" on Instagram search tab.

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jaskaran | Marketing (@jaskaransainiz)

 

Elon Musk's Mad about threads app

Twitter users are no longer mad about that reading limitations. And Elon musk mentioned that the Meta is sanely working on promoting this app.

 

App Availability Updates

• Preorder is available for this app on play store, not in germany yet.
• New rumours are the app will be not launched to EU countries on 6th July. The app is set to launch first to English speaking countries first.

 

Update: Instagram's threads app will not launch in EU & Ireland due to current privacy concerns shared by Irish DPC in a latest announcement. Even though the data usage of Instagram and this new app is the same. The data protection organisations still have their concerns to share.

App Launch Time

Threads, an Instagram app will be launching midnight UK & EU Time / 4pm Pacific Time & 7pm Eastern time.

The app was going to be launched a little later on Thursday. But looks Meta is excited to launch the app even earlier.

This is the official launch time!

 

Why Meta is launching a twitter rival app "Threads"

If you are keeping up with US-related social media news you might not know the whole story of why the launch now. The smaller picture is Twitter's new  viewing rate limits issues caused meta to rush the launch and release the app.

 

The global picture brings back to Global state of twitter in countries like India and government. The message of Elon musk to bring freedom of speech isn't limited to US. Twitter has been trying to fight Indian government to have better freedom of speech rights.

 

And that has lead to huge conflicts between the twitter employees in India and the government. Making Twitter suffer.

 

On other hand, Meta's Instagram is the most loved app by Indian consumers. The young audience is sick of twitter and currently Meta has a huge opportunity to act and fire the shots at Twitter.

 

And this was Instagram seizing the opportunity and announcing this app. Just like they announced Instagram reels after TikTok Ban in India. Meta's market share in India and other asian markets is huge and they consume more content on meta platforms. Again, Elon announcing tweet reading limit also impacted Indian audiences.

 

Overall giving Meta green signal on launching this app. That Twitter being stuck with two major problems has made it easier for Meta to gain the new audience for Threads, an Instagram app.

 

The Fear about Meta

What I personally fear is Threads app failing to grow. As last year, many small meta apps and features were abandoned or removed. Meta doesn't care about a small number of users utilising the app, if they don't make it big with this new app. The project is likely to be abandoned by Instagram in a year or two.

 

It would be interested to see how all this plays out and what the future holds. with people leaving reddit, may be Meta can also capture that new style of audience.

 

Jaskaran's Personal Bite

 

My first thoughts are I see linkedIn benefiting from this whole twitter-meta diva app situation. As they have been pushing on being the overall social media app. And launching a lot of text-based features. They also have a newsletter feature to attract more journalists to share news on the app.

 

Second, I see new users will hesitate joining the platform due to privacy concerns on Meta platforms. The have a bad reputation in consumer mind, unless creators & other big communities attract the average user. I feel Meta will have a hard time attracting core audiences.

 

Third, Having some faith in Twitter engineers and product managers I believe they will go back to either basics or try to improve things.

 

Last, You are a creator or business deciding to join the Threads app. Treat all the people from Instagram following you on this app as True Fans. If they're opting to see more of your business & content. It is a great  sign of validating your progress in the realm of social media marketing.

 

For further insights and social media marketing related updates. I recommend you subscribing to my newsletter here or you can fill the form below to receive it. Only what matters is sent to you in the mail!

 

Rant: Threads Meta app logo is one of worst social media app logo of all time.