Table of Contents
Introduction
Today Instagram launched a new app called threads it’s a Twitter clone and it feels really good and there are loads of loads of great features and some big questions so let’s talk about my first impressions the first thing that struck me is the way that photos show up on the app if you post a single image you can post any.
Photo Display on the App
Aspect ratio and it will show up on the feed in that aspect ratio however it was that you intended to show it it will show it that way if you include that image in a carousel then it is slightly cropped to give you this neat little kind of bar of photos that you can scroll through but if you tap into it it will show that image in the full kind of aspect ratio that you intended and what’s nice is you can mix landscape aspect ratio with portrait aspect ratio so you can really just kind of post any image that you want and it will show up.
Tap to Follow
In that way another really nice feature is tap to follow from the feed so when you’re scrolling through your feed you’ll notice people are showing up that you don’t follow and we’ll talk about that but but they might have a little plus button and you just tap it and you can just follow that person if you really like them I’m actually using this more of a way of seeing whether I do or don’t follow that person rather than a way of just quickly following them but it is nice that Instagram or threads.
No Grid and Recent Feed
Have given us new ways to kind of follow people since we’re all brand new to the app and things is you know this is big hype time right now the next thing that I’ve noticed which really is changing the way that I’m engaging with people on the platform is there is no grid which means there is no kind of First Impressions you’ve obviously got your bio but you really just have a feed in the most recent stuff is showing up at the top and I like that I think that’s a nice change from Instagram where we’ve.
Breaking Down Niche
All got very heavily curated accounts where you kind of go to it and you can see straight away what kind of person this is this also means that I think it’s going to break down what Niche means on these kind of platforms I post whatever I want to Twitter if I’ve got some images I really enjoy I just post them but I don’t do that on Instagram I think I will do that with threads and I think that’s a good thing because you know I could think of it selfishly and say I’ve got all this work to share but.
Discovery System
Actually I’m looking forward to seeing the different images from the photographers that I personally follow the discovery system seems interesting okay this app threads is kind of just showing me lots and lots of stuff from people I don’t follow I’m fine with that right now I’m they’re obviously going to tweak it I would personally like to make it so that if someone I follow comments on something that I might see that that that kind of feels more like Twitter was I’m not gonna judge the platform too.
Linking to Instagram
Much right now because they’re obviously just going to tweak it and I think in in the weeks to come we’ll see what kind of Discovery system they plan but right now it feels like Twitter and that is good in my opinion now as we’re talking about linking from a different app something’s really nice is at the very top of someone’s threads you just got their Instagram icon you tap that and it takes you straight to their Instagram account this could mean that threads is a very good way to build your Instagram account.
Linking Instagram Posts
I don’t know if we even need to care about Instagram anymore that’s something I will talk about in a minute but it’s nice that we can just tap that icon go straight over to Instagram it’s seamless it’s expected but you know it’s nice that they’ve done that and while we’re on that topic if you link an Instagram post in Threads the image will show up um that’s kind of I guess something that we would expect but it’s nice to know that it does because on other platforms it doesn’t I think they’ve done.
Reposting and Viewing Images
Amazing job at the user experience here one feature in particular that I really like when you repost something it’s the same as like a quoted tweet where you’ve got your little bit of text and then the original post usually you’d kind of have to tap into that to explore that post but you can actually just scroll through the carousel as it is and tap on it and view those images as it is this might sound like a very specific thing but it just feels really seamless and any way that we can make sharing each other’s.
Absence of Video View Count
Work and sharing other people’s work more seamless is a really good thing and I’m actually really excited about what this means for the photography Community because it means we’re going to be able to share each other’s work much more and not have it throttled in the same way that sharing someone’s post to stories is now here are just a really couple of things to note that I think are interesting there doesn’t seem to be any view count on videos which is interesting .
Understated Follow Numbers
Quite easily but I quite like that there is no view count on videos because that means that we don’t care about view counts on videos we simply care about communicating with each other the follow number is quite understated compared to Instagram which means hopefully people won’t care about it quite so much in fact to go to following you actually have to tap on the number and then you’ve kind of got this new interface where you can see followers and following if that number is less kind of important maybe follow for follow.
Deleting Threads Data
All of this kind of gaming this system will be hopefully less prevalent and on that subject there’s a kind of post going around where it says that in order to delete all of your threads data you have to delete your Instagram account now while that does sound scary and get people’s concern I think it’s simply that all of the data is being held under that Instagram account so it’s not that they’re trying to trick you into never deleting your threads data I just think simply that it’s one kind of patch.
Instagram vs. Threads
Data so in order to delete it you have to delete it at its source which is your Instagram account but this does throw up some very big questions uh the first is why would anyone use Instagram now this is better than Instagram and all of the people that I love from Instagram are moving over to threads I went on to Instagram after a few hours of using threads and I was like this feels very labored this feels very kind of old and I don’t like it I didn’t like it before and I like it even less now so this kind of begs the question.
Decentralized Social Networking
Are meta actually trying to get everyone over to a new app that they’re going to put everything into or is this very much supposed to be a kind of sidecar for Instagram very difficult to know and I think I will make a whole video just on that one subject another big question is all of this stuff about decentralized social networking and fediverse activity Pub I don’t know what those things mean deeply that I posted a video about two videos ago that kind of goes into that information a little .
The Next Era of Social Networking
Things are important for this app they aren’t very obvious right now which means that this app is just kind of the tip of the iceberg and a step towards the next era of social networking now that kind of leads me to my final thought on this app there is a new social media app that people are probably telling you you should care about and I guess I’m one of those people that doesn’t mean that you should worry about it that doesn’t mean that you need to carve out more time in your busy schedule to care about a new app.
Opportunity to Care Less About Social Media
Actually I think this is an opportunity to care less about social media I don’t think you should be going on the app trying to find ways to growth hack it trying to find ways to pump up those numbers I don’t think that is the way to go about this app I think you should use this opportunity to find a way to actually connect with people in a deeper way if that’s something that you want to do and forget about that old era of social media which is all about artificially pumping up numbers for whatever reason I think that avoiding.
Conclusion and Call to Action
The growth hacking and simply talking to people communicating with people is actually what this app is all about so that’s what I think of the app if you want to I was about to tell you to come over and follow me on threads which is totally contrary to what I just said so I won’t say that even though I have kind of said that I’m just saying if you want to come say hi do so um I don’t care about the numbers really most importantly enjoy your social media and let me know in the comments.