[HN Gopher] Threads, a Slack alternative unrelated to Instagram,...
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Threads, a Slack alternative unrelated to Instagram, has seen
downloads surge
Author : gslin
Score : 116 points
Date : 2023-07-15 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| [deleted]
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Just looks like a more expensive and less feature rich version of
| slack?
| ec109685 wrote:
| Reminds me of how the $ZOOM stock kept shooting up whenever ZM
| was in the news: https://securityboulevard.com/2020/04/investors-
| buy-up-the-w...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| This is an actual play book strategy in good times
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| [dead]
| josteink wrote:
| I'm sure the geo-restrictions placed upon the app, only making it
| available in the US and a few other select countries are
| contributing to this.
|
| There may be -no- official IG Threads app in the AppStore when
| curious minds go searching.
| tomrod wrote:
| It's dumb. Needs a web interface. Hard pass without the ability
| to block adds or export data.
| anothermoron wrote:
| Yea It took some time before I had it available in the
| PlayStore here in Canada after the release, but the app from
| this article had updated their description saying they are not
| related to META Threads.
| vitorgrs wrote:
| Hm? Threads is available in all countries except EU (and China
| I guess).
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Happened to me.
|
| They say something like "this is similar to slack, not a social
| network", but it still seemed like a plausible description of the
| FB Threads.
|
| They should be more explicit: "THIS IS NOT FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM
| THREADS".
| Valodim wrote:
| You say "they should", but man does that sound like an annoying
| thing to have to do to your product...
| Yhippa wrote:
| I don't see a ton of actual people or friends posting on there. I
| do see a ton of brands, though.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I'm guessing they've given brands that advertise on FB and IG
| various promotions if they post to Threads to create the
| illusion that someone is actually using it.
| [deleted]
| gtk40 wrote:
| I can't tell if you're talking about OP's link or to the
| unrelated but same named product.
| stn8188 wrote:
| Is there a way to see corporate brands on the Slack-
| alternative-Threads, or is this comment about the Twitter-
| alternative-Threads?
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| Plus NSFW content is banned and moderation is much heavier
| handed than Twitter. This seems like a ploy to get people
| addicted to the algorithm but in 'Threads' fashion. Twitter may
| have an advantage if people perceive it to be a more
| 'realistic' portrayal.
| zerbinxx wrote:
| A lot of people use instagram where NSFW content is banned.
| Most people wouldn't post or look at NSFW content online if
| it was related back to their IRL selves. There's certainly a
| big niche for a "more wholesome web". While I think it's
| goofy to expect the entire web to operate like this, I kind
| of like that I won't be inundated with porn, videos of people
| getting killed/maimed, etc. when I'm scrolling on some social
| media apps.
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| I'm the complete opposite. Obviously no one enjoys spam,
| but I want real human content. YouTube comments are even
| more useless now as it's all just happy happy joy joy from
| the algorithm.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| It really was a huge L to not have threads.com
| jquery wrote:
| Meta was caught flat-footed by the success of Threads. They had
| better get in gear and take Threads seriously or they risk
| losing the thread.
|
| badump tsss
| zirgs wrote:
| The same "L" as not having steam.com
| DaSHacka wrote:
| or minecraft.com
|
| https://youtu.be/Ardk5agFomY
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Such a bizarre decision too. This is the best chance Meta had
| to eat Twitter's lunch and obviously the branding is going to
| make-or-break that. With the massive +EV potential that
| represents, and the value provided by owning a .com (as
| demonstrated by the amount of confusion from people going to
| threads.com), does it not seem obviously worth it to negotiate
| extensively with Threads.com for them to rebrand and sell them
| the .com? It's not going to get cheaper for them if Threads
| does indeed eat Twitter's lunch.
| CharlesW wrote:
| If 100 million sign-ups in five days is losing, I don't want to
| win.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I mean, at Meta's scale it seems hard to know. Expectations
| are through the roof.
|
| A better number would be that they were able to push 1 in 40
| of Meta's users and 1 in 10 of Instagram's users into the app
| signup in 5 days of national press coverage. I have no idea
| what typical uptake of a feature is in Instagram. Nor do I
| know how many people signed up and checked it out vs. became
| actual active users.
|
| I also am not sure if 100 million users is even anything to
| be excited about at Meta's scale. Google seems to kill
| projects that have that many MAU for lack of executive
| support.
| jasonladuke0311 wrote:
| The DAU drop off is going to be (already is?) monstrous. Not
| sure if that's a metric that matters because I don't care,
| but people have already stopped using Threads in large
| numbers.
| [deleted]
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Well, now I am wondering what the reports of threads user base
| plummeting means....
| CharlesW wrote:
| It means the record-breaking sign-up boom has tapered off, and
| user behavior is evolving from "hello world" mania to more
| normal usage patterns.
|
| > _Between July 6 and July 12, figures provided to TechCrunch
| from Data.ai indicate that Threads had more than 880,000
| downloads globally on iOS alone, having had "few downloads"
| prior to this point._
|
| It also means that Meta calling their Twitter-killer "Threads"
| is the best thing that could've happened to threads.com, which
| was (at best) not thriving.
| account-5 wrote:
| Looks like meta might have to change the name if the other
| threads owns the trademark, that or pay for the name. That
| clearly this is proof the two products are getting confused by
| would-be users.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Instagram had a threads product previously, so I am sure they
| have figured out if they are allowed to name it Threads or not:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787783/instagram-threa...
| dchest wrote:
| There's no US trademark for "Threads", but somebody submitted
| an application for it on Jul. 07, 2023 for... Next Computer
| Inc. Hmm!
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=98075358&caseType=SERIAL_...
|
| According to Delaware filing, this "Next Computer Inc." was
| incorporated 12/14/2020.
| humanrebar wrote:
| There is trademark common law that covers unregistered
| trademarks. I am not a lawyer, so I won't comment on how or
| if it applies on this case.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark
| cmcaleer wrote:
| > For: Downloadable computer application software for mobile
| phones, namely, software for providing access to information,
| advice, food and exercise databases and calculation tools
| including a interval timer, covering the field of diet,
| weight loss, diet planning and lifestyle wellness, and
| intermittent fasting
|
| Lol, I wonder if they had a generic dieting app ready to go
| so they could jump on any new brand name that they could grab
| the 'downloadable software' mark for.
| jaggirs wrote:
| They also took the "Meta" trademark from an existing augmented
| reality company. I believe that company decided to sue
| facebook. I think facebook probably just doesn't care and will
| just settle any possible lawsuits or something.
| paxys wrote:
| People wanting to download a Twitter clone and downloading a
| Slack clone by mistake. Both with a bland generic name. Describes
| the state of tech pretty well right now.
| malfist wrote:
| In the past we never had generic names in tech, like windows or
| apple
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| In the 1950s every company was literally called General X.
| General Electric, General Motors, and General Dynamics are
| still huge today
| mattkevan wrote:
| Absolutely love that naming convention. It's so vague and
| specific at the same time. Like someone's asked them what
| they do and they've just waved their hands vaguely and
| said, 'oh stuff, you know, with electricity, that sort of
| thing'.
|
| The best is General Magic, whoever thought of that
| should've taken the rest of the week off.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I love how many banks are named First something or 1st
| something.
|
| Less so now, the past it seemed like it was almost all
| local banks.
| sofixa wrote:
| And it wasn't only in the US either, lots of big French
| companies were called Compagnie generale de X since the
| 1800s. Many modern behemoths such as Veolia, Transdev,
| Vivendi, Vinci trace their origins to such companies
| (sometimes the same - Compagnie generale des eaux was
| _massive_ at some point).
| jbreckmckye wrote:
| Or "Fabrique Nationale"
| oneplane wrote:
| Indeed. Nothing is as specific as that disk operating system.
| harryh wrote:
| Someone should start a company to sell business machines
| internationally.
| friendly_wizard wrote:
| Maybe this time they can avoid enabling the holocaust
| mcbuilder wrote:
| Would be smart if they broke into integrated electronics.
| frfl wrote:
| Some savvy capitalist should start a shipping company and
| name it after a country in the east
| dig1 wrote:
| And they should go to the oracle to have someone read
| their palm.
| [deleted]
| ayewo wrote:
| Does anyone remember Clubhouse? Clubhouse the social audio app at
| clubhouse.com ?
|
| The sudden popularity of clubhouse.com overshadowed clubhouse.io
| forcing the latter to rename to shortcut.com.
|
| https://www.shortcut.com/blog/clubhouses-name-is-now-shortcu...
| brundolf wrote:
| Slightly OT, but we used this at my last company and it was a
| delight. Very much a "what if Jira were good" dream-product
| pjot wrote:
| It was super confusing the first few times I heard it mentioned
| when I switched to a new company.
|
| Now their name and logo are similar to apples shortcuts.app and
| news.app
| ClosedPistachio wrote:
| Funny, Meta just went through the same trouble with the name
| 'Meta'.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I still just call them Facebook, just like most people still
| just call Google Google (instead of Alphabet)
| tylerhou wrote:
| Well technically Google still exists; it's a subsidiary of
| Alphabet, and people who work at Google are employed by
| "Google LLC" (and not Alphabet). (In fact I think I remember
| there was some training that explicitly told us to NOT say
| that we were employees of Alphabet.)
|
| The company "Facebook" no longer exists, though.
| alexvoda wrote:
| Yup they rebranded for different reasons.
|
| Therefore to frustrate the marketing efforts of both you
| should call them Facebook and Alphabet (even when actually
| referring to the current Google).
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Who or what is a meta. Everyone knows what facebook is though.
| dasil003 wrote:
| It's a master class in obfuscation:
|
| "What even is Meta?"
|
| "It's... meta"
|
| It tickles my dad funny bone, but not sure it will throw
| anti-trust regulators off the scent.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I thought this was the idea. The public stopped trusting
| Facebook so they needed to obfuscate.
|
| It's scary when you open Instagram and it says "from
| Facebook" but meh when it says "from Meta."
|
| Same as reading "business X acquired by Facebook" versus
| "acquired by Meta."
|
| It's a form of reputation separation. Same thing Google did
| with Alphabet.
| pram wrote:
| Honestly why have the "From whatever" at all?
| benreesman wrote:
| As a former employee with a decade in the shop and as much
| inside baseball as anyone could expect:
|
| I have no fucking idea what the Meta name change was about.
| Outright0133 wrote:
| Same thing as Google -> Alphabet
|
| Lack of regulation leads to a giant megacorp buying up
| corporations to grow even bigger.
|
| They used to call it trust busting.
| furyofantares wrote:
| > I have no fucking idea what the Meta name change was
| about.
|
| Forget about the metaverse, it seems like it was a good
| change to me, just to not be named Facebook.
|
| I can tell Meta has a much more positive association in my
| mind than Facebook (the company). Probably because I
| associate it with Instagram as strongly as I do with
| Facebook, and "insta" is still considered kinda cool.
|
| People are having fun on Threads, and somehow zuck seems to
| be considered cool there. I never would have expected it. I
| see Instagram mentioned there, I see zuck mentioned there,
| sometimes I see Meta mentioned there, and I don't know if
| I've ever seen Facebook mentioned there.
|
| The branding seems to have allowed Threads to have mostly
| its own branding with strong association with Instagram
| given the slick onboarding and graph copying, and no real
| association with Facebook.
| srgpqt wrote:
| Just like everyone knows Google but never heard of Alphabet
| hfkwer wrote:
| That's the goal. This way headlines will read
| "meta/alphabet fined $X million for selling user data to
| cartels/illuminati" and nobody will know WTF this is about
| because they'd need to read the article to learn it's the
| parent company of Facebook/Google.
| adra wrote:
| Meta is a nameless holding company that stands for nothing.
| Facebook is a dieing platform that GenX & boomers may still
| use. At least they seem to have the clue that hitching your
| company name to a dead platform is a bad business strategy.
| sgt wrote:
| It's not growing but I would not say it's dying. People are
| definitely sti using it and they are making profits. Many
| young people at least have an account, and many are caught
| up in the web of Messenger.
| soligern wrote:
| Who or what is an alphabet. Everyone knows what google is
| though.
| fredgrott wrote:
| Maybe Mark could brand rename to .... ElonsLunch
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Maybe he would accept that idea for the name of another
| offspring.
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(page generated 2023-07-15 23:01 UTC)