Last month, we reported a news where Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, revealed that their upcoming response to Twitter will be a standalone app built upon Instagram’s foundation and Cox referred to the app as “Project 92,” and it may be publicly known as Threads. Well, it’s no longer a secret, because soon you can start using this new app.
The AFP reports that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has released its new Threads app, designed to rival Twitter. The app was made available for pre-order on both the iPhone and Android operating systems on yesterday. (The Android link is only viewable on a PC and not on your phone because Instagram removed it.)
The app is listed as “Threads, an Instagram app,” this new Twitter-like app is launching on 6 July 2023, and is described as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app.” On App Store and Google Play Store, Meta describes the app as:
Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.
Instagram
The launch of Threads follows a period of uncertainty at Twitter since it was taken over by Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, in October. Musk has implemented significant changes within the company, including restructuring, mass layoffs, and the introduction of a subscription paywall for certain features.
The concept behind Threads is to create a decentralised and independent social network for real-time sharing of written messages.
Twitter faced backlash recently when Musk announced that the platform would restrict the number of tweets users could read per day. Non-subscribers, who make up the majority of users, would be limited to 1,000 tweets daily.
The decision was primarily aimed at reducing the usage of the social network’s data by third-party entities, particularly companies utilising the data for artificial intelligence models.
