This what Instagram’s upcoming Twitter competitor looks like
/ Meta is talking to celebrities like Oprah and the Dalai Lama about being early users. ‘We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run,’ a top exec told employees.
By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line newsletter. He’s covered the tech industry for over a decade at The Information and other outlets.
The Verge
Jun 8, 2023, 2:51 PM CDT
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Image: The Verge
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One of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor during a companywide meeting today that was watched by The Verge. You can see some of the screenshots above.
The new standalone app will be based on Instagram and integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol. That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers with them to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.
The forthcoming app, which, in the meeting today, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox called “our response to Twitter,” will use Instagram’s account system to automatically populate a user’s information. The internal codename for the app is “Project 92,” and its public name could be Threads, based on internal documents also seen by The Verge.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run”“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” Cox said, throwing direct shade at Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter, to cheers from the audience. He said the company’s goal for the app was “safety, ease of use, reliability” and making sure that creators have a “stable place to build and grow their audiences.”
Cox said the company already has celebrities committed to using the app, including DJ Slime, and was in discussions with other big names, including Oprah and the Dalai Lama.
He said “coding began” for the app in January and that Meta will be making the app available “as soon as we can.”
Instagram’s upcoming Twitter competitor shown in leaked screenshots - The Verge |
