If you are an avid social media user, then you would know Meta’s new social media app, Threads – a direct competitor to Twitter – has taken the world by storm. With Mark Zuckerberg revealing that within the first 24 hours there have been 30 million sign-ups, here is everything that has happened so far.
If you are in the minority who don’t know what Threads is, then here is a quick explanation by Meta themselves:
“Threads is a new app, built by the Instagram team, for sharing text updates and joining public conversations,” says a Meta spokesperson.
“Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. We are working toward making Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.”
Similar in a way to Twitter, Threads allows posts of 500 characters long that can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes.
When Threads was released on July 6, the app completely blew up, with Mark Zuckerberg posting – or threading – that over 2 million people signed up in the first two hours.
New Zealanders are amongst those who have been quick to join the app, ranging from brands to prominent Kiwis. Here is what happened on Threads in the first 24 hours:
Shit You Should Care About interacts with the Mark Zuckerberg
Popular New Zealand social media and news platform Shit You Should Care About was amongst the very first users to have access to the app as a tester.
As the 380th user on the app (Idealog is the 46,371,556th user), Lucy Blakiston, Founder and Creator of Shit You Should Care About had quite the interaction with creator Mark Zuckerberg and CEO of Instagram, Adam Mosseri.
Mosseri posted his first thread saying he was excited to build an app that worked on becoming an “open and civil place to have conversations”.
Blakiston replied with “Hoping this is a slay… will let you know”, to which Mosseri replied with a simple “Please do”.
But the interactions with the industry leaders didn’t stop there, with Blakiston then posting a thread regarding a recent TikTok of Olivia Rodrigo sharing the clean version of her new song that included the lyrics “Mark Zucker”.
Read more: Do start-ups have “lucky girl syndrome”
“Wow, where was this?,” replied Zuckerberg.
Blakiston was quick to reply with a link to the TikTok to which Zuckerberg replied again with “Love it”.
“While we’re chatting, good luck on the cage fight,” says Blakiston, a reference to the impending fight Zuckerberg is allegedly going to have with Twitter CEO and competitor, Elon Musk.
These NZ businesses and brands are kind of funny?
Still in its infancy, Kiwi businesses and brands were also quick to join the fun over at Threads and test out the waters in how the app could be a part of their social media strategy.
Here are some of our favourite Threads by Kiwi businesses and brands:
Newshub:
Wellington City Council:
New Zealand Police:
Stuff NZ:
So where do we go from here?
Having only been one day since the release of Threads, there is still a long way to go for the platform.
Mosseri says that there is a lot of work to still be done on Threads such as being a valued platform over time and missing features such as a following feed, hashtags, search bars and so much more.
“We couldn’t be happier with all the excitement about this app, so thank you thank you, but this is a race to the starting line if there ever was one,” he says.
He adds that these features will are set to come on the app, “but full disclosure, it’ll take time”.
Are you on Threads? Share your feelings with us on the app by discussing with us on @idealogmag
