Instagram Launches Camera-first Messaging App ‘Threads’
Instagram is a famous photo and video-sharing social networking service created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010 and later acquired by Facebook in 2012.
Since its launch on the iTunes App Store in 2010, the platform’s popularity has skyrocketed. Instagram reported that the app already had over forty million active users in just two years before its debut on the Android operating system.
What’s up with Threads?
In recent events, Instagram unveils a new private messaging app called Threads. Dubbed a direct rival of Snapchat, Threads allow users to send personal messages to contacts on their “close friends” list. Instagram users now have a brand new shiny app to share their favorite media such as photos, videos, and online fact collection sites.
This new feature provides you with detailed notifications and an inbox solely dedicated to those on your “close friends” list. If you don’t have any contacts on this list yet, you can directly set one up from Threads when you download the app. Threads automatically start up your camera and allow you to custom make shortcuts to the app so you can send photos and videos to your close friends quicker.
Keeping up with friends is also made a lot easier when you’re handling your busy schedule thanks to the Status feature. With this feature, you can either input any given status, customize your own, or set it on auto status which automatically shares small bits of information regarding your location without giving away your whole coordinates.
Heating the competition with Snapchat
According to screenshots from beta testers, Threads’ design promotes constant and automatic sharing between users and the people on their “close friends” list on Instagram. Thanks to its similar inbox layout, Instagram users can easily navigate through Threads with no problems. This app is more than just a new competitor against Snapchat. Threads is set to be the next “pivot to privacy” in Facebook’s long domination in the messaging app industry.
It’s more than just the quick messaging features that are getting people hooked on the app. While sharing photos is a lot similar to Snapchat’s view once rule, Threads offer so much more privacy than any other messaging app out on the market today without needing to sacrifice any of the social sharing niches.
Threads is an app specifically made to focus on your inner circle of friends. This fits well with Facebook’s mission to focus more on creating platforms that focus on its users being able to create more “meaningful interactions” with those close to them.
What does this mean for the future of private messaging?
The trend towards private messaging doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg stated that the instant messaging feature on any of its acquired platforms consecutively generates the most traffic out of all the other features available. With the launch of the app, it seems that Thread’s focus leans more towards favoring localized and interpersonal communication over global dissemination.
Since its debut release on October 3rd of this year, Threads has been slowly rising in terms of user volume. However, out of Instagram’s billion-plus user count, only an estimated total of two hundred and twenty thousand people had downloaded the app within its first week of release. Unlike Instagram’s other companion apps such as Boomerang and IGTV which estimated a total count of 2.8 million and 1.5 million respectively in its first week of release, Threads still has a long way to go before being able to level up with its predecessors.
While Instagram’s team itself has yet to release any public comments regarding the app’s low download count and feedbacks, some users have reported having downloaded the wrong app of which shares the same name as Instagram’s latest companion app, Threads. Users speculate that this may be the reason why Threads isn’t rising to the level of Instagram’s other companion apps as it should.
While we can’t say for certain what steps Threads will take next, it’s still too early to say anything for sure. But if the app continues to move in the direction Facebook intends, we might be looking at the next big movement that will ultimately change the social-media game at large.