News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by babl-yc on Monday July 03, 2023 @09:11PM (#36580901)
The key thing for me is whether it's really a text focused app or they ruin it by trying to cross promote Instagram/Reels and turn it into a mindless time suck.

If they get the little details right, I see this as the only real competition to Twitter right now. After trying Mastodon for a few months, it's certainly not it.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by delecti on Monday July 03, 2023 @09:34PM (#36581062)
Agreed. I think this succeeds or fails based on the ability to follow different kinds of things from users separately. If I can follow someone's Threads and not their Reels, I'd be glad to have such an easy migration path off of Twitter (I'm having a lot of fun on bluesky, but it's not ready). I'm not optimistic about that though, because you already can't choose to not follow reels separately from pictures.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:06PM (#36581307)
I never got a Bluesky invite and I've seen a couple comments mentioning "it's not ready" so I'm wondering why people keep saying that? It has been in development for a while, so I would assume it is ready at this point in time.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by gochi on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:31PM (#36581484)
It's not a large team, and it's very barebones in terms of features, like DMs. They also weren't ready for the small boom in users trying to sign up the other day, so networking is still a concern for them. Also they haven't been working directly on the app itself this entire time, they also created a new protocol due to Jack's desire to re-evaluate everything rather than "create a twitter clone".
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by lapcat on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:37PM (#36581533)
It's not. Bluesky is still quite primitive. I wouldn't even call it a "beta", more like an alpha.

They gave invite codes to some "influencers", and it got a lot of hype and media attention, but after the hype died down somewhat, it's become basically a nothing burger. I've stopped giving out the invite codes that I'm accumulating, because my feed is pretty boring and dead. Bluesky is far more "promise" than reality.

Meta has 1000x the engineering resources of Bluesky.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by biggestfan on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:04AM (#36582106)
You should post any codes you have here, I imagine the HN userbase is more likely than most to be interested in trying a project like that out (or maybe it's just me :))
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by lapcat on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:21AM (#36582200)
I already have plenty of people interested in the codes. But when new people arrive and look around, they tend to lose interest just like I did.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @10:19AM (#36587066)
So instead of sending out your invite codes to diversify the user base to generate more content, you will instead not distribute the codes?
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by lapcat on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @11:32AM (#36588018)
> diversify the user base to generate more content

That's an incorrect assumption. I've given out codes before. It didn't generate more content, because people quickly lose interest.

The grass is not greener on the other side.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:21PM (#36588780)
I guess that's fair. I don't necessarily think I agree with you yet, but I don't think I disagree as much either. Interesting discussion.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by elliotec on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:39PM (#36581544)
I feel like the fact you can’t even use it yet because you don’t have an invite is exactly why it isn’t ready yet.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:45PM (#36581582)
Well sure, but to be fair they let a lot of "influencers" on some sort of working platform and it got a lot of hype, but since then... You don't hear much anymore. I was just wondering what was going on, they've been working on it for a while now.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by depereo on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:07PM (#36581702)
I've heard most of the discussion on the platform is 'meta' discussion about bluesky itself, rather than anything interesting.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by sokz on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @02:40AM (#36583018)
My experience with mastodon was the same for a while until Elon took over twitter. Now I do see discussions on stuff I care about although I am starting to see discussions regarding the threat of Meta federating with some big instances of mastodon.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by depereo on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:10PM (#36591925)
Yeah, seemed like a lot of chatter from people onboarding Mastodon was 'how does this work' or 'how do I use it to build and find community or news' or 'why this is better than other options'.

That seemed to fade fast on an individual basis once there was critical mass to support conversation on other shared interests between users but flares up again from time to time when a new 'wave' of people join. Maybe bluesky just lacks critical mass for user interest overlap other than 'being on bluesky'.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @09:19AM (#36586272)
I think this right here is what makes me curious about Bluesky in the first place, the meta discussion on HN about it is weird and I want to see it for myself.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by delecti on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:14PM (#36581368)
Bluesky feels like a beta. It's missing: DMs, private accounts, gif/video embeds, and any sort of advanced notification controls. They don't have a trust and safety team, and they're using the invite system to slow down their growth because they can't keep up with demand. It's fun at its current small scale, but they aren't ready to be a Twitter replacement yet.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:24PM (#36581439)
The invite system just really gives off Google+ vibes and I'm wondering if we end up in the same place after Threads launches. Facebook/Meta seems really poised to eat Bluesky's lunch in a few days.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by depereo on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:06PM (#36581697)
Gmail also had invites to start, back in the day, and that's the de facto email service now.

But that had a compelling day-1 offering that was clearly better - massive free storage allocation. Bluesky doesn't have a compelling reason to sign up like that, so the invite system feels flawed.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by Semaphor on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:42PM (#36581944)
Gmail also had so much hype around it, invites were sold online (I paid ~1.10€ or something on eBay). ~~Blusky, not so much.~~
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by mminer237 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:13AM (#36582155)
I see a lot of Bluesky invites that have sold on Ebay today. For ~$20 too.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by Semaphor on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:41AM (#36582333)
* * *
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by zimpenfish on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:02AM (#36583633)
> Do people actually talk about bluesky outside of HN?

I see a bunch of people talking about it on Twitter in the context of "I'm on Bluesky, follow me there in case this implodes". But yeah, >90% of the Bluesky mentions I see are on HN.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by hyperhopper on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:01AM (#36582085)
- Gmail had killer features that made even moving desirable.

- Email is federated so there is much less cost to switch providers where you can still receive and send from others. No stickiness factor

This is why Gmail succeeded and g+ failed

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by lmm on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @01:03AM (#36582426)
GMail's invite system worked because you could use GMail to talk to your non-GMail friends. G+ failed for many reasons, but one of them is that if you got in before all your friends there was just nothing you could actually do there.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by ulfw on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:34AM (#36583849)
Gmail was so much better than competing services at the time (in terms of storage) and also this was almost 20 years ago.

Different world, different internet, different userbase.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by gopher_space on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:42PM (#36581942)
Facebook exists because they started off as .edu only.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by pndy on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @01:35AM (#36582594)
I'd expect that Bluesky would launch invites in next few days or so, to those who left their emails. I mean, their competitor is up so why not sent these invites or even open registration for anyone

Unless of course they first want to see how much interest it gains

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by fomine3 on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:50PM (#36582017)
Loginwall is what I really dislike about Bluesky. Is it temporaly or design?
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by astrange on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:19PM (#36581411)
If it was ready I assume they'd take the invite wall down.

I haven't got one either yet so don't know its state.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:17PM (#36581395)
I just checked, I have some invite codes!

I’ll DM you!

EDIT: realised you can’t DM on HN

How can I send a code to you? If you want one that is, you might not be bothered :-)

EDIT EDIT: I’m using the Hack App on my Phone, I think maybe I can DM followers from the desktop site?

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by throwaway9418 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:37PM (#36581529)
Not to turn the thread into a code request party, but if you have a spare one I would be interested, too. Just professional curiosity.

There is no way to DM, but Firefox Relay can be used for temporary email addresses:

xow6d86sq at mozmail dot com

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by jtr1 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:32PM (#36581489)
If you have an additional code you’d be willing to part with, I’d love to give it a try! jonathan dot organizing at gmail.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:23PM (#36581434)
Sure, thanks! Seems like an interesting platform. skiman10 at duck.com

Not sure on the DM stuff, if you figure it out let me know!

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by dotcoma on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:52PM (#36581632)
Would love an invite, thank you!

6ndpn1zk AT duck.com

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by Vaskerville on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:26AM (#36582225)
I can't resist - I've been trying to get an invite for awhile now. Thanks!

zhym4g7v AT duck.com

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Sunday July 09, 2023 @01:08AM (#36651709)
Incoming
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Sunday July 09, 2023 @01:23AM (#36651794)
I'm out, if I get more, I'll come dish them out :-)
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @10:04AM (#36586852)
Well this turned into a begging fest for invites. Sorry about that.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Sunday July 09, 2023 @01:10AM (#36651723)
On your email!

Apologies for the delay!

I'm all out of codes now - If I get anymore, I'll share them here.

I didnt realise at first there were so many requests! :-)

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Sunday July 09, 2023 @02:10PM (#36657149)
Thank you!
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by INGSOCIALITE on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:06PM (#36581695)
I would love an invite if you could DM me fellow HACK user :)
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by pablasso on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:37PM (#36581913)
Would love an invite if you still have

7jsqi5gf at duck.com

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Sunday July 09, 2023 @01:05AM (#36651699)
Incoming!

Apologies for the delay.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by rwl4 on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:44PM (#36581953)
Sadly I don’t think Hack adds DMs either. I’ll pile on here and ask if there’s any chance you have an extra code! Thanks either way! [email protected]
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by grepfru_it on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @03:00AM (#36583172)
can I ride this wave?

0df41fec3f63 AT fomogo.club

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Sunday July 09, 2023 @01:05AM (#36651700)
Incoming!

Apologies for the delay.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by firecall on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:12PM (#36581352)
You arnt missing anything :-)
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by shivz45 on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:23PM (#36581803)
Bluesky is where ppl bash twitter and no other comments
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by lapcat on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:31PM (#36581853)
> Bluesky is where ppl bash twitter and

and Mastodon.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by delecti on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:33AM (#36582271)
There's definitely some of that, but it's a minority. Most people are just enjoying being weird and horny on a new platform.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by pferde on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:09AM (#36583677)
Apparently, (at least some) content creators like it better than Mastodon already. See https://drewdevault.com/2023/06/30/Social-and-parasocial-med...
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by jug on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @05:19AM (#36584160)
I think it's too barebones and they are still working out the moderation and safety problem. Besides, it looks like it scales like shit. It's not ready for wide adoption, I have to agree about this one.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by dbbk on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @08:34AM (#36585823)
The UI sucks.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by skiman10 on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @09:30AM (#36586376)
This is a new one I haven't seen before, could you go into more detail?
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by kafkaesque on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:14PM (#36581743)
Social media needs to be destroyed, not enhanced, empowered or encouraged. Don't give Meta PMs ideas.

Ceci est un post de protestation.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by pxoe on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:31PM (#36581858)
it's akin to calling for people to be silenced. it is literally that. "socialization needs to be destroyed". lol
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by BonitaPersona on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:14AM (#36583708)
Social media is definitely not socialization. In a Venn diagram, the cross section of social media and socialization is tiny.

- A very, very small part of socialization may very, very occasionally happen on social media.

- Social media allows for multiple phenomena to happen, but the overwhelming majority of it won't be socializing.

The issue here is the redefinition of "socialization" intrinsically made by the "social media" marketing campaigns. The solution is a better understanding of what human socialization actually is.

This is not a critique of social media. I like and use it, even though I'd like more diversity. But stop mixing it up with "socialization" because it is not, even if the marketing of social media relies on trying to mix them up.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by 1270018080 on Monday July 03, 2023 @09:35PM (#36581067)
I have a feeling it'll have the intellectual quality of the Instagram comment section, which is worse than the Facebook comment section, which is 10x worse than Twitter.

But I agree if there is heavy integration with the rest of Meta's products I'll be less happy.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by gureddio on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @06:05AM (#36584549)
Surely this is about who or what you are following though.

Personally there is very little crossover between what I follow on instagram and twitter. So the quality of the discussions vary greatly.

On Twitter I follow developers and product people. The quality is better on Twitter, but it's definitely declined because of engagement seeking over the last few years.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by inDigiNeous on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @01:37PM (#36589967)
Hopefully they really put effort into the web part of the product, I mean really writing text on a phone or even a tablet is not so easy.

But I'm guessing they wont do that, as Meta wants lock in and registration, and following all your data.

At least current version of instagram on the web is pretty lame, if you don't install some browser extensions.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by solarkraft on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:42PM (#36581556)
> After trying Mastodon for a few months, it's certainly not it.

Why?

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by babl-yc on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:28AM (#36582246)
From my experience: - Feed was purely chronological (no algorithmic feed) so I missed a lot of content - Sign-up process isn't obvious due to decentralization - Likes, profiles sometimes had bugs or required extra clicks if from other servers - Few people I follow migrated from Twitter, and most have since stopped posting due to lack of engagement
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by mjhagen on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @03:06AM (#36583216)
The pure chronologic feed is why I used Tweetbot and is why I'm on Mastodon.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by dbbk on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @08:35AM (#36585831)
Twitter has had a chronological feed for years
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by mjhagen on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @02:38AM (#36596315)
One that they actively discouraged users to use and reset every once in a while.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by mrweasel on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:23AM (#36583765)
> Feed was purely chronological (no algorithmic feed) so I missed a lot of content

People normally have the reverse complaint, that the algorithm makes them miss content.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by Yizahi on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @07:38AM (#36585315)
People (tech inclined and looking for a forum platform) want chronological feed, yes. But they want it usable too. Mastodon doesn't have any categorization/classification/tags tools, everyting is dumped into a single gigantic realtime thread, and if you blink you miss the post and its gone forever. I tried Mastodon once, when it was just starting out and abandoned after playing around for a while. It's simply unusable, compared to any forum or reddit. Or even to a Facebook, with it's horrible UI. At least FB has groups and pages which kinda work like a bad crutch for categorization. Mastodon is lacking any of that.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by joepie91_ on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @10:09AM (#36586911)
> Mastodon doesn't have any categorization/classification/tags tools

Huh? Mastodon certainly has hashtags. Likewise, there are posting groups. More implicitly, different social groups tend to cluster together and re-boost interesting things.

Like, to be clear, fedi isn't going to be the right solution for everybody (or necessarily even for most people), and it's totally valid to dislike it or prefer something else. But it certainly does have organizational tools; they are just differently shaped.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by cesarb on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @11:06AM (#36587652)
> Mastodon doesn't have any categorization/classification/tags tools, everyting is dumped into a single gigantic realtime thread

I don't know whether it helps your use case, but Mastodon has a "Lists" feature, which allows you to group the accounts you follow into separate realtime threads. For instance, one list could be for small accounts from which you don't want to miss any post, while another list might be for high-volume daily news accounts (and IIRC, there's even an option to "hide accounts on this list from your home timeline", so you could use lists for the noisy accounts and have everything else in the home timeline).

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by Marazan on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @07:40AM (#36585345)
The majority of people who use Twitter use the algorithmic feed.

HackerNews posters are not the typical Twitter users.

(Just to be clear I personally hate the algorithmic feed but there are lots of use cases for it that just don't align with my Twitter usage)

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by solarkraft on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @05:46AM (#36584345)
I agree about the algorithm. People wanting a strictly chronological timeline seem to largely be a very particular tech crowd.

I don't personally notice a lack of engagement. Maybe not everyone migrated, but I feel like the most important people have.

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by rodgerd on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:15PM (#36581747)
If?
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by vlunkr on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:26PM (#36581829)
That’s the key thing for you, but reels are super popular, so I would expect cross promotion.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by andsoitis on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @12:53AM (#36582380)
> text focused app

what ratio of tweets are rich media vs. text?

Re:Threads, an Instagram App by mjhagen on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @03:04AM (#36583199)
The twitter I used was way more text than media, I had Tweetbot set to small thumbnails as well. For me at least, Twitter started as text only and ended as text mostly.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by shrimpx on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @02:13AM (#36582842)
I mean twitter’s gone in the tiktok/reels direction, too. Tap any video to make it full screen and swipe up: endless time suck. Not to mention that Twitter is a brain drain even without the swipe-up black hole. Not defending meta, just not seeing the potential downgrade from Twitter. They’re in the same business.
Re:Threads, an Instagram App by no_butterscotch on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @10:00AM (#36586788)
If they also tie your account to Instagram/FB, then do I get banned across services if my account is somehow "flagged"?

Whether that's for unknown logins, spam accusations (just an accusation is enough for a tech company to throw the ban hammer), etc.