Do you think Threads will overtake Twitter in the long run? What would be the reasons if it did? Is Threads delivering on those reasons today, or do you just predict it will?

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I have been from the Orkut days and i believe that Threads will not overtake Twitter in the long run. What mostly will happen is that they will co-exist as how different social media platforms co-exist today. Definitely Threads will create a dent in the Twitter revenue as its easy for the influencers and followers alike to link it with their Insta account. However, we should also not forget that Twitter has some loyal users and some of them have become more loyal after Elon Musk promised uncensored data. And given the history of Meta with exposing the users data with tricky terms and conditions, there might be divided users between Twitter and Threads and they both will co-exist.

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There is so much interest in a suitable alternative to Twitter that Threads has the potential. If Meta makes a few changes, it could surpass what Twitter is providing. But there are some core challenges it must address first.

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It just further splinters the country and planet in to echo-chamber groups. It does nothing to make things better and only contributes to the broader societal problems largely caused by social media itself.

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It’s just a user-base issue. And at this point, Twitter is tanking and Threads has tremendous momentum.

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By user count I don't think there is any question. Having access to Meta's userbase is such a huge advantage I don't think it's close. The better product....tbd

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Absolutely not!

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If I recall correctly, Google used to say that they only planned for 3-5 years out. They understood that up to the 3 year mark they were reasonably certain but years 4-5 would be much less certain. Going past 5 years meant that any plans were more fiction than fact.

When it comes to technology, the "long run" isn't necessarily as long as you think. I recall a world of many social networks that soon became just one (Facebook.)

I've also seen people selling clones of Twitter but none of them has really taken off. The thing with a social network is that its value increases exponentially with scale. As more people join, being a member can have more value. What's the point of a social network with only 100 people?

There are alternatives to twitter, reddit etc. Often the people populating these spaces are those that have been kicked out of the original spaces or they have an "independence" streak in them. For the people who were banned (often there is a good reason.) Yes, some were banned undeservedly but probably most were banned with good reason (i.e. very inappropriate content.)

Google tried something similar with Orkut, they took your Google account, moved you to Google+ and then brought over your contacts into Orkut. This led to a very large blowback. With threads we have something similar. If you have Instagram, you can add on threads but if you want to delete/remove yourself from Threads you can't really do that yet.

I suspect that this will lead to a situation where we have many abandoned Threads account. Twitter has something similar where they've changed how they measure engagement. Now if you skim content you're considered to have viewed the entire piece. If I was advertising on Twitter I would use this as a point to get my CPM rates reduced significantly. For Threads we'll see how things go. I suspect that there will be a decentish launch but in order for Threads to succeed, it will need to offer something new.

The type of advertising/content on Instagram is aimed at people with a lot of disposable income. The type of content is "different." Instagram is more about bragging about the life you pretend to lead. I'm reminded of the joke where an influencer stopped everyone from boarding the plane so that they could get a picture of themselves on the moving stairs on the plane. They then sat down on a seat in first class before moving to their real seat in economy. Instagram wasn't really built for a conversation that went back and forth.

Twitter from the start was about telling the world what you were up to. Initially it was limited to 140 characters because that was the size limit on a text message (SMS). It was supposed to be a text blast to your friends/followers. Posting content like photos etc. came much later. It was built into a day 1 feature of Instagram. Legend has it that the creator would sit down to pitch VCs, take a photo and then post it to his account. He would have the VCs bring up the page and they were blown away that the picture was on the screen.

All of this is to say that Instagram and Twitter started differently and I don't see a perfect overlap. That said its very likely that Twitter would just fade away on its own. Myspace has traded hands a few times and each time for less money. There is nothing to say that the same thing couldn't happen to Twitter. The challenge is that Twitter isn't living up to some of its legal commitments. But it serves a purpose and so far the government has kind of let is slide on a few things. I don't think that the government will give the new owner as much leeway. Instagram already has as content moderation team and Threads will benefit form that. I feel that Threads will be the more wealthy version of Twitter. That may be good but in some parts of the world, Twitter is everything, its news, communication, etc.

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I think threads is a fad. It is also super time consuming as people are trying to build their brands on there. I personally think it is clubhouse 2.0

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Thus far Threads has been junk feeds for me. Zero quality content this far and myself and others I know are getting zero of our content viewed. The algorithm isn't working that well IMO

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Possibly, but it needs to improve a lot, and ideally provide a way to have separate collated business and personal feeds.

Do you think Threads will overtake Twitter in the long run? What would be the reasons if it did? Is Threads delivering on those reasons today, or do you just predict it will?

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