The threads are already here, or at least half of them are here. A priori, Meta’s new social network already exists, but the “fact” (in quotes, we’ll explain why now) is that it has not yet been launched in the European Union. However, we were already able to access Topics from Xataka, have a look and see what’s going on, how it is inside and what we can expect from Mark Zuckerberg’s “new Twitter”. And yes, we already guess that it starts with an advantage.

Half drop (half drop). First, Topics is not available in the European Union for privacy reasons. But the truth is that nothing prevents you from downloading the APK file from a trusted repository, installing the application on your mobile and launching it. Contrary to what you might expect, you don’t need a VPN or anything like that. It downloads, installs and runs. That’s exactly what we did on an Android mobile for these demos.

Register. Threads couldn’t be easier as it integrates with Instagram. When we open the app we log in with our Instagram account so we keep our username. If you want we can also import our bio and add a link that we can also import from Instagram. Photography is more than just the same. And finally, we can make the profile public or private as we wish. Really, that’s pretty much all we have for now for customization.

people to follow. When we complete our profile, Topics suggests who we can follow, and each of our Instagram contacts appears in the list, whether they’re in Topics or not. In fact, I already had follow requests when I opened the account. The thing is, thanks to this mechanism, Threads starts off with a huge advantage over Twitter: a base of 1.3 billion users who are already on Instagram and are potential users of Threads. It’s a bit of a “cheat” to show people we follow on Instagram as users to follow in Topics, and even more so as it’s no longer officially available in Spain, but the idea is that you can be aware from the start of what’s posted by people you follow.

feed. It probably won’t surprise anyone that the topic feed is algorithmic. As the contents of the people we follow are displayed, the publications from the accounts that we do not follow and that may be of interest to us (they are mentioned here as the subject) are also visible. A “+” appears on the profile photo of these algorithm-selected accounts to quickly follow them. Photos, videos, GIFs and text can be shared and there are no ads, at least for now. Watch out for now. It probably won’t take long to change. It should be noted here that Threads will use the same ActivityPub protocol as Mastodon, so it will be part of the fediverse, but this is not available at launch.

To discover. In the magnifying glass icon, we’ll find recommended accounts to follow and a profile search engine (not threads), little else. There are no trending hashtags or additional content beyond the search engine and account list. In fact, it is striking that the hashtags we put in the headlines are not clickable, so they don’t have any a priori impact or value, for example when it comes to commenting on and following an event. However, this is a very early release, so things like this will likely be implemented in the future.

create topic. Threads’ message generator couldn’t be simpler. We can put up to 500 characters in each message and add information to sub-messages like Twitter headers. There is no formatting option and you cannot edit a newly submitted post. What we can do is add multimedia content, choose who can see the post and hide the ‘likes’ count (something inherited from Instagram but maybe it makes less sense here). Users viewing our topics can reply, share, quote, like, mute, hide, block and report content.

notifications. Simpler than the jug mechanism. The tab is divided into four blocks: All, Replies, Mentions, and Verified. ‘Everything’ is a mixed bag of everything, including ‘likes’, reposts, mentions, follow requests, new followers… ‘Replies’ only shows replies to our messages, and ‘Mentionments’ shows mentioned messages. us and interactions with verified accounts in the “Verified” section. A little more.

our profile. The last icon we have is our profile, which is very minimalist and simple. Our name will appear large next to our photo and we can edit it, share it (by creating such a link), see our posts and access Instagram directly. Settings are a bit sparse, some privacy settings (like restrictions) are shared with Instagram. We can make the profile private, manage mentions and mutes, filter words and little else. Currently, several options.

simple app, but it has so much potential. This shows that Threads is just born and has a long way to go, but the foundation is there. The app interface is very simple and intuitive, has a pretty high number of potential users and comes at the perfect time. However, it has room for improvement. No direct messages, no possibility of filtering the feed to only see content from accounts we follow, unavailable from the web, and a bit slow but occasionally. Now, we’ll have to wait to see if it finally comes together and manages to topple Twitter.

Pictures | xataka

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