How the heck did Zuckerberg completely MISS the utter total 100% importance of the user handle in trying to lift Twitter's user base from Musk?
Let me tell you this - Twitter users ARE their handles - handles matter.
But in Zuckerbergs's world, to join Threads, you have to get an Instagram account - and apart from all the handles already being gone there, you certainly can't get your Twitter handle on threads.
People love to get a good handle - it's a personalised number plate. So Threads should have played on this - people who are engaging, posting, building audience on Threads, well they get their choice of handle.
There should have been the biggest handle rush of all time - in return for usage and engagement. Instead - Threads got the opposite - no good handles available at all, disincentive to join. Ugh.
Why - why does Threads use Instagram for its user management system? That's a mistake that has to be fixed pronto.
If I was running that project I would have said you get to have the same Threads handle as your Twitter handle if you can prove you own it by posting a code to Twitter. Of course Musk would do his best to make that not possible, but playing that game is part of the publicity of getting people to move over. Coming up with encrypted codes, obfuscated codes to prove your identity. The newspapers would write about it, you could build talk about Threads, build the perception that there was a real movement towards Threads. But did facebook do anything like that? No, they just dumped you in the Instagram user account system and said "no good handle for you". Really, whoever it is at facebook running the Threads project lacks the imagination to be taking on the job of stealing Twitter from Musk.
a) Because it allows most people to join instantly without having to signup.
b) It leverages your existing Instagram interests, connections etc. for the feed.
c) Enhances your Instagram advertising profile with additional data.
d) It means that Threads has a robust, scalable, secure and proven auth system.
It's a fight with Musk, not development of a banking ledger system designed with UML.
And it's not just technical reasons but business ones. Feeding additional data into Instagram ads is going to improve the quality of their targeting engine. Which means Threads is contributing to Meta's bottom line without them having to run ads.
> it's failing.
I'm sorry, what?
What about the 2.3 billion Instagram users who get reminded about it every so often?
Right now, it seems to be blocked in half of the countries in the world. This probably affects the network effects.
I'd have to ask colleagues that joined Meta, but I'm imagining a team that's totally checked out. You know, you like/need the $$$ you get biweekly, but your hearts not in it, so you show up everyday going through the motions and just keep pushing that boulder up the hill. Meta doesn't have the greatest reputation, and then on top of that your working on Mark Zuckerberg's spite social media project...
Bluesky is mentioned a gazillion times more, and even that not very often.
Great first season.
Cancelled.
They're obviously not advertising it due to the product being close to complete... it doesn't even have search or trending yet... Why waste money on advertising if the product isn't even done yet?
And now its built, I'd have done a better job advertising and marketing it.
Let me ask you - when the latest Mission Impossible movie came out, when the latest Spiderman movie came out, did you see ads absolutely fucking everywhere? Yes you did - bus stops, TV, YouTube - everywhere you turned, that message was being sold to you. When the latest Apple phone came out, were you even able to escape the Apple advertising on radio, TV, YouTube, magazines, whatever? No, you were not able to escape.
Let me ask you - how many slick, stylish, compelling ads have you seen for Threads? Is the answer "absolutely everywhere", or is the answer "nowhere, never, none"? Or is the answer "damn facebook is pushing Threads down my throat".
The incompetence firstly of the technical build then secondly of the marketing is startling.
The conclusion has to be either facebook genuinely doesn't care about Threads, it's just a distraction from trying to make the metaverse, OR they genuinely care but they genuinely have no idea what they are doing, despite having all the money in the world.
I say I'd be better at making Threads than Zuckerberg because almost anyone would be better - for gods sake all you need to do is picj up the phone to the top ad agencies and tell them to pitch for a $500M adverting spend. It's not rocket science.