Meta’s Twitter Alternative is Coming Soon, Based on a Recent Internal Briefing on the App

Meta’s Twitter clone app appears to be getting closer to launch, with Meta executive Chris Cox sharing more information concerning the recent offering at a Meta all-hands staff meeting earlier today.

As reported by The Verge, Meta’s text-based feed app, currently called ‘P92’ (or ‘Barcelona’ in another iterations which have been leaked) can be a straight feed of text updates, though users will even have the opportunity so as to add photos and videos to their messages.

The essential feed itself looks like a DM thread, with replies that expand out beneath the essential message, together with small bubble profile icons on the side, representing which users have replied to every.

There looks to be 4 tabs within the app, including a essential feed, explore, favorites, and your profile, with the center button being a composer window so as to add your individual post.

These latest screenshots look barely different to those that Meta shared with creators recently, nevertheless it could be various presentation based on OS.

Cox specifically described the app as a ‘response to Twitter’, while also criticizing Elon Musk’s disruptive reign on the app.

“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who’re focused on having a platform that’s sanely run, that they consider that they’ll trust and depend on for distribution.”

Based on The Verge, the app may very well find yourself being called ‘Threads’ when it’s finally released – though Instagram did already use that name for one more failed spin-off app that it launched back in 2019, and was shut down lower than two years later. That doesn’t mean that they’ll’t use it again, nevertheless it seems potentially cursed to resurrect a failed project name in a brand new form.  

Perhaps Meta’s not overly superstitious.

Together with today’s insights, what we already know concerning the coming app is:

• P92 will use your Instagram credentials to log in
• It would also use your Instagram ID as your username in the brand new app
• The utmost length for P92 posts will reportedly be 500 characters
• The app can be decentralized, though it’s not entirely clear what meaning in a Meta context as yet

On the last point, The Verge has also reported that the app will integrate with the decentralized protocol ActivityPub, which could enable users to transfer their information, including their audience info, to other apps that support the identical. Mastodon is one other app that supports ActivityPub integration.

Based on Cox, Instagram’s reps are already in talks with various celebrities to assist boost awareness and usage of the app, including Oprah and the Dalai Lama. Unsure that they’ll be as cool as Mr Beast or the like, with YouTubers holding significantly more influence amongst younger audiences. But perhaps that is reflective of Meta’s audience focus here – perhaps, Meta’s not trying to succeed in younger demographics, but older users as a substitute, who could also be drifting away from Twitter over time.

Indeed, in response to Pew Research, the median age of adult US Twitter users is 40, with a better educational baseline than other apps, and that is more likely the important thing goal of Meta’s recent push, in attempting to win over these users with some big names who’ll post exclusively to its recent app.

Get enough of them, and that would see the project take off, and without delay, as many query the direction that Twitter’s taking under Musk, could possibly be one of the best time to supply these influential users a brand new home for his or her real-time updates.

It looks prefer it’ll provide the same user experience to Twitter, and it’ll be easy to log in and use, which has been a key criticism of Mastodon. The app will even profit from Meta’s broader reach and promotion potential, by being linked back to IG, which has around 4 times the audience reach than what Twitter currently sees.

It’s too early to have an informed opinion on whether it can work, nevertheless it does appear to tick quite a lot of the boxes, and it could find yourself being the Twitter alternative that many have been searching for.

We’ll keep you updated on any progress.