In this ever-evolving online environment, there are always new platforms appearing, or just growing in prominence and with platforms like Meta bringing out updates and new features regularly there’s always a new space to explore. Meta Threads was launched on 5th July 2023 and hit 100 million users in less than a week, but since then the app has also lost half of its users, so is Threads worth it?
Threads has been marketed as a virtual community platform that aims to connect online communities. As a newer platform, the communities created are diverse and with a new platform can form and build on their shared relationships. However, X is more widely used and is known for its text posts and short lifespan content as new tweets replace older ones on users’ feeds.
Created as a direct rival to X, previously Twitter, there are many obvious similarities from the outset. This includes the appearance and the focus on text-based content, compared to Instagram which is more visual. Threads also has a character limit, but compared to X’s 280 character limit (25,000 for subscribers), Threads lets you hit a staggering 500 characters. And there are of course the options of reposting, liking and commenting.
While there are similarities, there’s also plenty of differences, with some making Threads better than X and some causing it to fall behind.
To begin, as previously mentioned, Threads does have a bigger character limit of 500, which gives users an easier opportunity to share their thoughts without creating multiple, consecutive posts. Threads also allow users to post up to 10 photos or a video of up to 5 minutes comparatively, X limits users to videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes 20 seconds long and no more than four photos per post. Finally, Threads is currently ad free, which means you can happily scroll without being inundated with ads, but if you’re looking to promote your posts in order to reach more users, you’ll find your plans scuppered as it currently stands.
However, Threads isn’t what X currently is, but don’t forget while X has been around since early 2006, Threads was only launched in mid 2023, so there’s still a lot of features that could be added in future updates. One of these features is the search function, currently Threads only lets you search by username, whereas X allows users to search by hashtags, keywords, usernames, people and trending topics which makes the platform a powerful search function and often the first platform people will head to when a major life event has happened.
In addition, Threads is, unsurprisingly, linked to Instagram, but compared to X, where you can deactivate and delete your profile with a couple of simple clicks, the only way to delete your Threads account is to delete your Instagram account as well. This connection is brilliant for sharing posts between platforms and ensuring your data and information is synced and correct, but it also means that you can’t have Threads without Instagram for now. This, again, may change in the future.
All in all, based on your priorities when it comes to social media platforms, Threads may surpass X or vice versa. There’s plenty of room for improvement on Threads’ end, but with the continual changes coming in for X and Musk’s big plans, who knows what the future has in hold.
