Threads

The fact that "keep your username" is the value prop Instagram is leading with in the App Store gallery implies to brands and influencers that Threads isn't about creating a NEW social graph, but leveraging the one that people have spent years developing. That's a huge advantage over every other Twitter competitor that's launched recently. Don't forget: Facebook grew by leveraging people's contacts and spamming them, a technique that is no longer allowed. Thus Meta is leveraging the sunk-cost of their monopolistic network to grow into an adjacent space using an asset no one else can: the Instagram graph. Whether Threads succeeds or no doesn't matter; what matters is whether it's compelling enough to cause brands and influencers to gradually starve off their Twitter posting long enough to take the bird site down for good.

I'm curious to see how this plays out. I'm a little skeptical that mirroring the Instagram graph is the right move though. Speaking for myself, I follow friends and visual storytellers (broadly defined) on IG but those accounts aren't necessarily the best at short form written word. But it's very possible that bootstrapping off this graph will pull creators into the platform that already have a large following and that IG presents a more algorithmic feed not entirely driven by who you follow to surface the best stuff.

How many threads can I read per day? more than 600? 😅