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Threads is Now Available on the Web (zdnet.com) 68

Posted by EditorDavid from the loosing-Threads dept.
Tuesday Mark Zuckerberg shared a photo on Instagram with "actual footage of me building Threads for web." And now ZDNet reports that Zuckerberg's photo is available on his new Threads page on the web.

"As of Thursday, Meta's new platform is fully accessible to all users from any computer and desktop browser, Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed in a new Threads post."

"Use your Instagram account to log in: threads.net," explains the official Threads account. "Scroll to catch up on the conversation, or start a new thread of your own." Posts can include photos and videos, or you can reply and repost to other posts. "This is just the beginning. We're working on bringing everything you know and love from mobile over to web. More soon."

Wired argues the move makes Threads "more broadly usable." Most users will still access it through mobile, if the way people currently access the internet is any indication. But the move to the web is the next step in Meta creating an application just sticky enough to kneecap X and draw attention away from Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, Post, and any other newish social app.

It's also a way to juice its users again. After that spectacular initial sign-up period in July, Threads usage dropped off precipitously. New data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower suggests that daily active users are down more than 60 percent from its first-week average, though it's now back on the upswing. Threads amassed 44 million daily active users during its launch peak, then saw usage drop to a low of 7 million DAUs in late July. As of mid-August, the app has seen increases of 11 million DAUs, Sensor Tower analysts say. However, time spent on the app per daily active user has also fallen, the firm says.
Caling Threads "a work in progress," Wired notes it ""will supposedly be compatible with ActivityPub, an open social networking protocol, but that hasn't happened yet. The app also doesn't currently support direct messages, a popular feature on X. And Threads is not available in the European Union, due to the regulatory climate there."

Their article also shares an idea from data journalist and engineer Surya Mattu: that both devices and social media apps like Threads should implement a transparency-guaranteeing "inspectability API" to always allow users to inspect their data and activity in real-time.
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Threads is Now Available on the Web More

Threads is Now Available on the Web

Comments Filter:

  • Threads (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @09:46AM (#63798814)

    There was a film called Threads .
    It was a British version of The Day After.

  • The people who care about this please meet in the phone booth outside the Meta headquarters. Thank you.

  • They blew it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @10:16AM (#63798860)

    They really only had one chance to grab some market share but they whiffed with missing features (like this web presence for example) poor moderation, bad algorithms and general Meta fuckery.

    Unfortunately it felt like the Instagram team is a bit too brain broken by their own platform to do what really needed to be done and that is just copy Twitter, feature for feature basically. They won't get another chance like they did though so we can put threads down as another also-ran in the Twitter wars.

    Bluesky is probably the only other viable competitor and the fact they are still on invite only means they are probably doomed to fail also. My prediction is Musk dumps the platform in the next 12-24 months.

    • My prediction is Musk dumps the platform in the next 12-24 months.

      Does Musk even care about the social network aspect of it? I am pretty sure he was buying a userbase to resurrect his stupid X.com/WeChat idea again.

      • I don't even know what he cares about the site anymore. After his latest fiasco with threatening to remove the block function he ended up blocking a bunch of his most ardent chud reactionary fanboys.

        He's got some sort of vision for the site that is wildly disconnected from the reality I imagine because he's a billionaire weirdo who has a talent for industries that involve manufacturing, not whatever Twitter is.

        • I imagine because he's a billionaire weirdo who has a talent for industries that involve manufacturing, not whatever Twitter is.

          He's trying to turn Twitter into the same thing he was trying to turn Confinity into before it was Paypal and before he was a billionaire. He even renamed that X.com if you look at the history. He became a billionaire by being wrong and the company getting rid of him.

    • My prediction is Musk dumps the platform in the next 12-24 months.

      He already did that. He handed it over to someone, and he very obviously doesn't give a fuck about it anymore. At this point, it's very obviously something he approaches with an "if it swims, it's mine, if it sinks, he's all on her" attitude. He doesn't care either way.

      • I don't think Yaccarino is anything but a figurehead at this point, I don't get the feeling she has any autonomy to make changes to the site at all and frankly the way she conducts herself is very much like a CEO who knows there's a limited shelf life and is just cashing them checks until it's over.

    • Gmail started as invite only.

    • If Zuck makes good on his promise and adds Mastadon support to the Threads client, this still can become a valuable social platform.

      On its own, it probably has little more chance of success than Truth Social.

      • Exactly this. Twitter's only value proposition is that pretty much everyone was there, such as any company that you might have a grievance with. As they jump ship, only something like the union of the FB ground and the Fediverse could possibly serve the same function.

    • They really only had one chance to grab some market share

      There's no such thing as one chance in the social media world. Even now their daily active users for # days after service launched is still record breaking. It took Twitter 4 years to amas the number of users Threads currently has (that is after that crazy spike when the service launched).

      Even now after the dust has settled threads is the most popular social media platform ever measured in fixed days since launch.

      They won't get another chance like they did

      Twitter (X) today is not Twitter at launch, nor is it Twitter 3 years after launch when it had

      • Sure, things could change in the future, nothing is impossible, but for a social media network the mindshare aspect and the network effects are crucial and Threads currently does not have them and maybe saying "one chance" is inaccurate but rather they failed to capitalize on their "best chance" to move users over when they would have followed their favorite posters and creators. If those people hung around on Twitter then their followers had little reason to switch. At this point the people who are leav

        • and Threads currently does not have them

          Not true, my fundamental point is that Threads does have the network effect. There's a difference between using a social media and having an account. The network effect is related to having the account. Once the account is in place that key barrier disappears. The fact that 100million people have threads accounts, whether they use them or not means that hurdle is largely overcome, the only thing left is mindshare, and the best advertisement for Threads is currently Musk himself single handily destroying Twi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      And also the fact that it is still not available in Europe. That made it hard for communities to move from Twitter because half the members couldn't sign up for Threads.

      Blue Sky has the same problem. Because invites are hard to get, Twitter communities can't just move there.

      We desperately need a replacement for Twitter, but Threads, Blue Sky, and Mastodon don't seem to be it.

    • The Threads I'm on is hopping. I suppose those still perched in the Xitter hellsite have to maintain their bias. Threads first went up and down in an unsurprising manner, and now it's just growing normally, and the web version has worked as a new spark.

  • Website, now available on the web (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Baloo Uriza ( 1582831 ) <baloo@ursamundi.org> on Saturday August 26, 2023 @10:40AM (#63798910) Homepage Journal
    like, this shit should have been a launch basic. Can't even call it a feature when it's literally the lowest expectation.

    • like, this shit should have been a launch basic. Can't even call it a feature when it's literally the lowest expectation.

      I suspect the launch window was carefully time for peak Musk crazyness and not feature availability. And it worked, 100m people have accounts, and they absolutely dominated the media at a time of peak Twitter frenzy. Now they can just slowly add the feature it should have had to entice people to log in again.

    • I don't know. WhatsApp didn't have a web version until very recently, and it still requires you to have your phone nearby.

      • And it's still not relevant to anybody who doesn't already have a Facebook.

      • I don't know. WhatsApp didn't have a web version until very recently, and it still requires you to have your phone nearby.

        Difference is that WhatsApp started as a phone app largely competing against phone IM (which obviously didn't have a web version).

        Threads is competing against a very entrenched Twitter, a very important part of which was the website. Arguably non-mobile Twitter users are the most important since they're the ones who write blogs and news articles that include embedded Tweets. And it's embedded Tweets that give Twitter a cultural impact far beyond its daily user base (apparently embedding is another critical [medium.com]

  • nice work meta.. 76% of the way to an Utopia

  • It looks like the web version of Threads needs an Instagram login. I don't have one... I use my Facebook login to get into Instagram. Oops. I guess that I'll have to wait for the Threads 1.0.2 patch :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfm3 ( 830843 )
      That's WAD, not a bug or missing feature.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by acroyear ( 5882 )

      "I came here to say this."

      My FB Post:

      Ah, the geniuses at META.

      If you activated your IG account by just linking it to your FB account...then you don't have an IG login/password. IG will always auth from your FB session instead.

      Threads doesn't give you the "use your existing instagram session" or "use your FB account". You have to enter a password...and it doesn't exist. Your FB password won't work, and if you "forgot password", you'll get an error.

  • Their article also shares an idea from data journalist and engineer Surya Mattu: that both devices and social media apps like Threads should implement a transparency-guaranteeing "inspectability API" to always allow users to inspect their data and activity in real-time.

    And when a stalker steals an authentication token or social-engineers the service, there's no way that kind of feature will backfire!

  • [joke] Is The Web unravelling? [/joke]

  • Is that a Blackberry?

    Is that his childhood desk that his mom kept for him?

    What's that tiny-screen thing he's "building" on?

    Many question!

  • TIL (Score:2)

    by redback ( 15527 )

    TIL, Threads didn't have a website.

  • I cared so little about Threads, I had no idea it was available exclusively as an "app."

    Behold the genius of the modern Silicon Valley: web technology doesn't work on the web.

  • If, for example, you were formerly using the threads app via Instagram authorizing through Facebook, well... that part doesn't quite work yet and you can't reset the password on an account that doesn't exist.

    • Also, if you haven't logged in at least once with the app to create the Threads profile, you can't login via the web interface.

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