Billions of people use Instagram every day and yet, it faces dire competition from Elon Musk’s Twitter. Instagram’s parent company Meta is developing an app to rival Twitter codenamed “Project 92”. We just got our hands on some of the screenshots of the app’s working tag as “Our response to Twitter” as per a top Meta executive.
The screenshots were displayed at a meeting on June 9 (Friday) that previews Twitter competitors at large. It is speculated to be named “Threads” as uncovered by The Verge. Screenshots of the app look similar to that of Twitter. Threads is a text-based social media app that uses ActivityPub – a decentralised social media protocol that Mastodon among others is using as well. The information was shared by Chris Cox, Meta’s CPO, at the recent meeting.
According to the reports, many celebrities like DJ Slime are already committed to using Threads. Potential additions include Dalai Lama and Oprah among others who are in discussions for testing out the app that will help it gain traction among their respective fanbase. In fact, the app has received requests from a lot of public figures who are ready to try this Twitter alternative designed to operate transparently and distribute information on a secure platform.
Threads (or Project 92) uses ActivityPub as its social media protocol. It is built to integrate accounts and followers from other apps using the same protocol as well. The app will be able to auto-populate user’s information similar to that of Instagram.
Twitter has proved its caliber as a popular social media platform with high-profile public figures, creators, celebrities, and other personalities using it regularly. Many apps have been launched as an alternative to Twitter and yet failed. Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey even launched an app dubbed Bluesky and it’s gaining popularity left and right. Yet, there’s a long way to go.
