Ten million users signed up for Meta's newly launched Threads app in its first seven hours, the company's chief Mark Zuckerberg says.
He pitched the app as a "friendly" rival to Twitter, which was bought by Elon Musk in October.
Experts say Threads could attract Twitter users unhappy with recent changes to the platform.
Threads allows users to post up to 500 characters, and has many features similar to Twitter.
Earlier, Mr Zuckerberg said keeping the platform "friendly... will ultimately be the key to its success".
But Mr Musk responded: "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram."
When asked on Threads whether the app will be "bigger than Twitter", Mr Zuckerberg said: "It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.
"Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will."
So Musk is basically saying that toxicity on Twitter is a feature?
It's not surprising that Threads has a large initial onboarding, given the pre-existing Instagram user base. It'll be interesting to see if it actually grows, regardless of whether Twitter continues in its death spiral.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Exodor wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 9:19 am
I read a post from the CEO of Mastodon that seemed to indicate that eventually, when Threads is federated, the content will be reachable from Mastodon. That might be a solution for me, allowing me to get to the content on Threads that I want while avoiding all the Meta monetization and data collection.
I don't mind the monetization. It's a business and I am the product. I do mind the intrusive unto abusive data collection. But then they aren't alone. Google is worse and Amazon of all things tries to be as bad.
msteelers wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 3:10 pm
The lack of a chronological timeline might kill Threads for me before it even starts. I don’t want the algorithm to feed me stuff.
It’s why I always preferred Twitter over Facebook or Instagram.
FB is the only thing I am part of and I also hate the lack of default (or fleshed out when you set it again and again to chronological) posting.
msteelers wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 3:10 pm
The lack of a chronological timeline might kill Threads for me before it even starts. I don’t want the algorithm to feed me stuff.
It’s why I always preferred Twitter over Facebook or Instagram.
FB is the only thing I am part of and I also hate the lack of default (or fleshed out when you set it again and again to chronological) posting.
In a letter dated Wednesday and published Thursday by Semafor, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro accuses Zuckerberg and his company of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees to create Threads "with the specific intent" of using their insider information to develop the app.
Spiro said many of the Meta-hired former employees "continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets" and have "improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices." The letter demanded Meta immediately stop using any “Twitter trade secrets” and said Meta is "expressly prohibited" from scraping any of Twitter's followers or following data.”
Spiro did not say whether the social media company will take legal action, but said “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice.”
Andy Stone, communications director at Meta, posted that “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
Musk responded to news of the letter Thursday afternoon, tweeting "Competition is fine, cheating is not,” and agreeing with another Twitter user that Threads is a “tapeworm.”
It sounds like Twitter will be doing everything it can to prevent users from exporting their follower/following data. The fact that Twitter/Musk is reacting to Threads when they haven't really reacted to Bluesky, Mastodon, et al probably indicates that they are seriously worried that Zuck is going to drink Musk's milkshake.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
I thought that was interesting. I set it and then it went poof after I logged in and reverted. If I stayed logged in all the time that would work but I don't stay logged in to anything all the time, much less something as intrusive as FB attempts to be.
Musk responded to news of the letter Thursday afternoon, tweeting "Competition is fine, cheating is not,” and agreeing with another Twitter user that Threads is a “tapeworm.”
Adding "when I fire people claiming they are not working, I expect them to stay fired and not working"
malchior wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 7:41 am
I can't wait to hear the details of the "trade secrets" that Musk claims have been "stolen".
I can only assume it has to do with scraping he gimped Twitter for right before Threads went public. Should be
Meta already has claimed that no former Twitter employees has had anything to do with Threads, even as Zucker has stated Threads is essentially the explicit answer to Twitter dissatisfaction.
malchior wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 7:41 am
I can't wait to hear the details of the "trade secrets" that Musk claims have been "stolen".
I can only assume it has to do with scraping he gimped Twitter for right before Threads went public. Should be
Indeed. It appears the public restrictions are more about that than anything because scraping is usually entirely legal. He is just putting up a barrier which also undermines the business model of the site because they are out of options.
Meta already has claimed that no former Twitter employees has had anything to do with Threads, even as Zucker has stated Threads is essentially the explicit answer to Twitter dissatisfaction.
They probably took a 'clean room' approach for it for this reason. No one who ever worked on a competing product. They designed it internally from the ground up and I'm sure there are mountains of design documentation and development logs to prove it was their own work. I've done assessments of cybersecurity for several tech companies recently and this is one technique when launching new products to avoid any such entanglements. Mostly because tech bro culture is so toxic. Musk is the embodiment of the worst of it after all.
malchior wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 8:50 am
They probably took a 'clean room' approach for it for this reason. No one who ever worked on a competing product. They designed it internally from the ground up and I'm sure there are mountains of design documentation and development logs to prove it was their own work. I've done assessments of cybersecurity for several tech companies recently and this is one technique when launching new products to avoid any such entanglements. Mostly because tech bro culture is so toxic. Musk is the embodiment of the worst of it after all.
Aren't they both products and engineers of that toxic culture? And if any of the biopics are to be believed, Zucker has been knee deep in Tech Bro IP since the college years.
Yep and he (and the army of lawyers at Meta) know how to defend against it against the bullshit Musk is going to throw at the wall to attempt to excuse and scapegoat his failure at Twitter.
The thing is, as I understand it, you can't sue someone for "violating" your trade secret. If they broke a law in order to obtain it, you can go after them for breaking that law, but something like reverse engineering a process to copy it is perfectly legal in the absence of a patent. Even if Meta did tap some ex-Twitter personnel, Twitter's recourse would be to go after those people for violating any applicable non-disclosure or non-compete agreements, assuming they'd even be valid when Twitter has seemingly reneged on it's severance obligations.
I'm on board with the suggestion that this threatened lawsuit is more about framing a narrative where Threads curb-stomps Twitter because Zuck is a cheater rather than because Musk drove his business into the ground.
Anyway, if this is accurate, Threads currently has about 68 million accounts and is adding about 1 million per hour.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Has anyone been able to ask Musk whether or not he regrets firing 80% of the Twitter staff yet?
I don't have any particular need for Musk or Zuckerberg and how they're openly trying to make money off their user base, but it's pretty amazing to me how quickly the Metaverse isn't a thing anymore and now everyone needs Threads.
Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 11:36 am
Has anyone been able to ask Musk whether or not he regrets firing 80% of the Twitter staff yet?
I don't have any particular need for Musk or Zuckerberg and how they're openly trying to make money off their user base, but it's pretty amazing to me how quickly the Metaverse isn't a thing anymore and now everyone needs Threads.
Musk seems like a "no regerts" kind of guy.
As I understand it, the longer term plan is that Threads will be accessible through federation with other social media platforms such as Bluesky, Mastodon or whatever, so it isn't so much that everyone needs Threads as much as it is that nobody needs Twitter going forward. The current advantage that Threads has is simply that it has a pre-existing user base because there are a bazillion Instagram/Facebook users that are already OK with Zuck & Co having access to their data, and it has the infrastructure in place to support a massive influx of users. People that aren't comfortable with Meta will eventually be able to interact with those that do if it all comes together, and people who aren't OK with even that amount of contact with Meta will land on platforms that choose not to federate with them.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Max Peck wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 10:56 am
The thing is, as I understand it, you can't sue someone for "violating" your trade secret. If they broke a law in order to obtain it, you can go after them for breaking that law, but something like reverse engineering a process to copy it is perfectly legal in the absence of a patent. Even if Meta did tap some ex-Twitter personnel, Twitter's recourse would be to go after those people for violating any applicable non-disclosure or non-compete agreements, assuming they'd even be valid when Twitter has seemingly reneged on it's severance obligations.
Not quite correct. Meta can't get to the trade secret (without risking a lawsuit at least) by hiring employees that they should know had non-disclosure agreements and/or non-competes. Tech bro culture derives from early Apple trade secret culture where those are standard terms of employment. It'd wouldn't be credible for Meta to claim they don't check for such.
Even outside Silicon Valley, most companies ask about non-disclosure/non-competes of new employees just to add a layer of protection against trade secret suits. That doesn't mean someone didn't lie to Meta about their previous employment but I've been deep in some of these projects and they usually do a deep vet on team members because the best defense is to independently develop something.
I'm on board with the suggestion that this threatened lawsuit is more about framing a narrative where Threads curb-stomps Twitter because Zuck is a cheater rather than because Musk drove his business into the ground.
Even if it isn't that directly it'll eventually turn into that. Musk is a sore winner and an even worse sore loser.
Max Peck wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 12:18 pm
As I understand it, the longer term plan is that Threads will be accessible through federation with other social media platforms such as Bluesky, Mastodon or whatever, so it isn't so much that everyone needs Threads as much as it is that nobody needs Twitter going forward.
Which makes me wonder if, in addition to an opportunity to expand, this isn't also a direct attempt to kill off Meta's biggest competition by yanking their users away just after Musk created a huge weakness. The best defense is a good offense, etc.
I mean, Twitter has been balancing on a knife's edge for month, holding on only because there was nowhere else to go (at least, nowhere that everyone was willing to agree on.) Providing that could easily push Twitter out of the game.
I'm sure it is. If anyone has the infrastructure in place, I'd think it was Zuck and the FB empire. All the people I know have been fleeing to Mastodon and Blue Sky, but they keep reporting back that both sites are clearly still not ready to deal with all the people that want to just dump Twitter and be part of a social network that recreates the experience they're fleeing.
If the biggest thing Threads can offer is the ability to just keep adding/absorbing new users, it'll probably help speed the death of Twitter along that much faster.
malchior wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 12:40 pm
Not quite correct. Meta can't get to the trade secret (without risking a lawsuit at least) by hiring employees that they should know had non-disclosure agreements and/or non-competes.
Thanks for the clarification.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
My only use case is to read posts, and that works fine with a PC browser. It might be possible to run the app on an Android emulator in order to access a Threads account from a computer.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Apparently there are 101 million Threads accounts as of today and the rate that new accounts are being registered is slowing down but hasn't plateaued yet. I'd be more interesting in hearing how much actual activity there is, rather than how many accounts there are, given that a lot of the accounts are just Instagram users that are activating the app without necessarily using it. The only person I know personally that activated a Threads account is a Twitch streamer who wanted to lock down the userid (they went to a lot of trouble to get the same name on all the social media platorms they use), but who is still using Twitter and has no plans to move elsewhere unless Twitter actually goes under.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
So yeah, with all the storm/flooding/rain emergencies this weekend (and today) in the NE, the amount of information being shared on Twitter has been sobering. Of course, I'm not really sure who's still able to see warnings from various state police agencies, the national weather service, TV personality meteorologists, OEM, etc... but I am hoping the last 48+ hours (and maybe the next 48) functions as a strike-point to recognize that something needs to be done to address the emergency response / communication vacuum that Musk helped create.
So I just received an email from "jay@bsky.app" announcing the following:
Hi friend,
Thanks for your patience! We're excited for you to join the early conversation on the Bluesky app. Please follow the instructions below:
Download “Bluesky Social” from the iOS or Play store
Enter in your invite code: [the code itself]
See you soon!
The Bluesky Team
Up until now, it has been necessary to know somebody who knows somebody in order to get a Bluesky invitation. Is this a scam, or is this Bluesky sending out more invites in response to the sudden appearance of Zuckerberg's Threads app?
Holman wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 7:07 pm
So I just received an email from "jay@bsky.app" announcing the following:
Hi friend,
Thanks for your patience! We're excited for you to join the early conversation on the Bluesky app. Please follow the instructions below:
Download “Bluesky Social” from the iOS or Play store
Enter in your invite code: [the code itself]
See you soon!
The Bluesky Team
Up until now, it has been necessary to know somebody who knows somebody in order to get a Bluesky invitation. Is this a scam, or is this Bluesky sending out more invites in response to the sudden appearance of Zuckerberg's Threads app?
Technically, it hasn't been necessary to get a referral from someone who is already onboard, just faster (if you happen to know someone) than waiting in line with everyone else who applied. If you applied for an invite on their website, then at some point they will send you an invite.
I don't have any idea what a legitimate invite looks like, but I'd expect that it should be safe enough to install the official Bluesky Social app from the iOS/Play stores and try the invite code. I wouldn't install anything that they helpfully link in the email, obviously.
For reference, this article has links to the Bluesky app on both iOS and Play stores.
Holman wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 7:07 pm
So I just received an email from "jay@bsky.app" announcing the following:
Hi friend,
Thanks for your patience! We're excited for you to join the early conversation on the Bluesky app. Please follow the instructions below:
Download “Bluesky Social” from the iOS or Play store
Enter in your invite code: [the code itself]
See you soon!
The Bluesky Team
Up until now, it has been necessary to know somebody who knows somebody in order to get a Bluesky invitation. Is this a scam, or is this Bluesky sending out more invites in response to the sudden appearance of Zuckerberg's Threads app?
I'm generally pretty security conscious, but I'm not an expert, so take that into account.
I don't see the risk. They're telling you to download the app from an official site, not offering a direct link. They're giving you information, not asking for any. Best case scenario: You do so, and the invite code works. Worst case scenario: You do so, and the invite code does not work. I'm not sure where they'd fit a scam into it.
Holman wrote: Wed Jul 12, 2023 3:12 pm
Just as an aside, I'm also wondering if Bluesky is trying to accelerate membership now that Threads has become the shiny new thing.
The window for 'twitter clone to supplant Musk's Twitter' certainly closed most of the way with Threads' launch. I'm sure Bluesky is well aware of that fact.
I'm not sure that the future belongs to anything as monolithic as Twitter was in its heyday. I think that what will emerge is a set of federated social media platforms that interoperate through a common protocol. That leaves room for big platforms like Threads, all the way down to niche platforms that cater to various special interest communities, but allowing all of them to interact with other platforms as much or as little as they see fit. The front runners in that space seem to be ActivityPub (used by Mastodon and others) and AT Protocol (used by Bluesky).
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Elon Musk said Saturday that Twitter is struggling with a "heavy debt load" due to losing 50% of advertising revenue, resulting in the platform having a negative cash flow.
"We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else," Musk tweeted to a user.
I hope he's considering raising the price to $16 for verified users. I'm sure that'll fix things.
Forbes India has Musk valued as the richest man in the world, with an alleged net worth of $245.9 billion, with two-thirds of that worth being tied to Tesla's success.
