{"id":498799,"date":"2023-07-04T07:13:03","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T05:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=498799"},"modified":"2023-07-04T20:10:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T18:10:15","slug":"instagrams-twitter-rival-launching-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/498799-instagrams-twitter-rival-launching-this-week.html","title":{"rendered":"Instagram&#8217;s Twitter rival launching this week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Instagram\u2019s highly anticipated Twitter rival is expected to launch Thursday, according to a\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/threads-an-instagram-app\/id6446901002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">listing<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on Apple Inc.\u2019s App Store.<\/p>\n<p>The app, called Threads, will function similarly to Twitter, with text-based posts that can be liked, commented on and shared, according to examples of screenshots on the Apple App Store listing.<\/p>\n<p>People will be able to follow the accounts they follow on Instagram and keep their same user name.<\/p>\n<p>Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc., declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>With the launch, Meta is seeking to take advantage Twitter\u2019s\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2022-12-14\/elon-musk-twitter-ownership-full-of-firings-ad-cuts-chaos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">problems<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0since the social media service was taken over last year by Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>Among the issues that have angered users, and spurred them to seek alternative platforms, are Twitter\u2019s loosening content moderation policies, and requiring a monthly subscription fee to be labelled as an authentic account.<\/p>\n<p>There are also problems with site reliability.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Twitter began temporarily limiting the number of posts users can see.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter\u2019s existing rivals, such as Mastodon and Bluesky, are more nascent and haven\u2019t yet built their networks to be viable alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>Instagram has been touting its forthcoming app with various celebrities and influencers for months, aiming to generate a buzz when it launches.<\/p>\n<p>The app is available for \u201cpre-order\u201d and is \u201cexpected\u201d on Thursday, according to the App Store listing.<\/p>\n<p>There,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2023-05-19\/instagram-readies-twitter-competitor-for-summer-release\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Threads<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is described as \u201cwhere communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today, to what\u2019ll be trending tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meta has a long history of borrowing ideas from competitors \u2014 and it hasn\u2019t always worked out.<\/p>\n<p>But when the company\u2019s copycat products succeed, they can catch on quickly.<\/p>\n<p>The feature for posts that disappear after 24 hours, called \u201cstories,\u201d was copied from Snapchat in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Now, far more people use that format on Meta\u2019s apps than use Snapchat.<\/p>\n<p>Meta more recently made a short-video product similar to TikTok, called \u201creels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In earnings calls, company executives have said reels are driving growth on both Instagram and Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>More than 3 billion people daily used at least one of Meta\u2019s apps \u2014 Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp \u2014 in the first quarter of the year, the company reported in April.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/498363-tiktok-challenging-facebook-in-south-africa.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">TikTok challenging Facebook in South Africa<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The app is available for \u201cpre-order\u201d and is \u201cexpected\u201d on Thursday, according to the App Store listing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":498801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[8911,10424,73842,2808,60669,405],"class_list":["post-498799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-apple-app-store","tag-instagram","tag-meta-platforms","tag-social-media","tag-threads","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}