The day finally came when Zuck and his team at Meta launched Threads, the Twitter alternative. Unlike some of Twitter’s recent launches such as the DeSantis announcement that flopped, Meta was able to turn on Threads with no glitches even though millions started downloading and trying the app out. That really wasn’t a surprise considering the vast server infrastructure Meta already has to support Facebook and Instagram. I’m sure they had capacity ready to spin up if things started getting slow.
Add to that the fact the team already knows how to architect and design high capacity social media apps. They know what surging can do to a site and how to handle it. They understand how to write apps that are resilient and stable. Throughout the day, the app continually performed well and even outperformed in some cases. Overall, it was a good launch day for Zuck and crew and provided assurance to the millions who signed up and continue to sign up.
What this meant for me was a chance to reset my social media experience on a new platform. After being an early adopter of both Twitter and Facebook, my list of contacts had become sloppy and full of people or organizations I really had no interest in. The problem was that it would have taken a lot of work to clean the list up and get back to a more curated set of contact.
With Threads, I can start from scratch and only follow those organizations I know have quality content or accept requests from friends I know can provide the stimulating conversations I like. Yes, I probably started creating an echo chamber of voices but I can always expand out cautiously or contract from those that don’t add value.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses and if the content providers shift to Threads. Quite honestly, I think I’ll be fine if some don’t. I just hope some of those I followed to continue to post content on Threads. The worst thing that could happen is for the content to stagnate in the platform. The fact Threads adheres to the ActivityPub protocol means it will already have a solid foundation in terms of a process and data model.
Anyway, sign up yourself. I’d love to see your content.