Why nobody expected Threads to be good
“Instagram’s Twitter” is here. It’s been celebrated and criticized by many, and will probably be sued by Twitter soon. Why did we expect Threads to be “average”?
[This is a shorter version. For the full text, visit Lead the Social Today]
The app that was just a rumor back in March is finally here. And the launch was not bad at all.
In the first 24 hours, the app got:
- More than 40 million sign ups
- 90 million posts
- and a threat from Twitter’s legal team.
The last part is not a joke: Twitter’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta, just after the launch, accusing them of stealing Twitter’s trade secrets and scraping data. Twitter thinks that Meta used ex-Twitter employees to build the app.
If nothing does, this attitude proves that Threads app is a serious competitor, and an unexpected move in the social business game.
Those who watch the game closely know that Musk does this when he feels threatened.
But why does he feel that way?
It was not rushed
You might think that Meta came up with the idea because of Twitter’s current troubles. But the approach has been cooking for a while.
The code name for the app was “P92” in March, and the first leaked name was “Barcelona” -probably a nostalgic reference to Instagram’s photo filter roots.
If you look at the website’s source code, you will find more than 150 references to that name. The word “threads”, on the other hand, appears only 13 times.
This might mean that the team has been preparing the relatively simple website even before the company has decided to announce the app.
But even before P92, Instagram team has been experimenting with written content in different formats such as Notes in the message tab and Broadcast Channels since 2022.
Meta seems to have been planning to make Instagram a larger universe for verbal expression.
The scene was more than perfect
We all know that Twitter has been in an unreliable mode under Musk’s regime and the user base was already looking for any viable alternatives.
Appointing Linda Yaccarino as the new Twitter CEO with her business and media background was a hopeful move for advertisers. After the appointment, some advertising executives openly declared that they were relieved.
But nobody expected Musk to transfer the company’s authority to the new CEO — and he didn’t. His legacy became a great problem and paved the way for Threads’ launch succes when they put view limits on Twitter users towards the end of June.
Even then, he felt safe. No alternative could shake Twitter’s throne.
But Meta should be different. A platform created by a tech giant should be taken seriously. Then, why didn’t he prepare better?
Why nobody expected Threads to be as good as it turned out to be?
Focus
In October, TechCrunch writer Darrell Etherington called for Meta to “forget the metaverse and make a new Twitter.”
But when you read the article you get the feeling that even Etherington himself didn’t think that they would take the opportunity.
Because Meta seemed to have lost focus.
At least that’s what its CTO, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, said on January 29th on his blog post.
to survive as a company you must be willing to focus and prioritize, because attempting to please everyone has a well-publicized result.
Let me be clear: Boz is not only a CTO at Meta. He was one of the founding employees at Facebook. He knew the spirit of the company. He knew “Zuck”: the guy who wrote “These pay the bills” under the first ads on thefacebook.com.
I suspect that the blog post was not directed to his readers: it was an open letter to the CEO.
On January 31st, at the investors meeting, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new perspective for the company.
He declared that the metaverse was no longer Meta’s priority. 2023 was the “year of efficiency”. They were embracing AI: not as a focus, but as a tool for social media.
This was a turning point: and this approach might trigger Meta to be a strong competitor for Twitter right now.
This article continues.
To read the rest, visit the original version on Lead the Social Today.
