Instagram Threads: The problem with the “everything for everyone” approach

https://thisisunpacked.substack.com/p/instagram-threads-the-problem-with

by viggybala • 3 years ago

81 112 3 years ago

thisisunpacked.substack.com

viggybala• 3 years ago

Analysis piece that talk about what makes a successful social network, why Meta’s “Everything For Everyone” approach is unlikely to submit and how Threads can pivot to be successful.

jb122• 3 years ago

I'm sure meta knows how to make a social product successful, the "everything for everyone" approach has earned them billions of dollars in revenue over twenty years now.

SCUSKU• 3 years ago

That only worked after they started off being exclusively a social network on college campuses. To the author's point, Threads needs to find a "subset of users [that] love and repeatedly [use Threads]".

Once they find Thread's specific purpose, then they can start to cater that to a broader audience and find true success, imo.

threeseed3• 3 years ago

Once they find Thread's specific purpose

They already have that purpose. It's to make a better Twitter.

And given the significant drop in Twitter traffic it's working.

viscanti• 3 years ago

They're very familiar with TikTok and how many people are moving over to use that. Their bet is that they can figure out how to highlight the most interesting content for each user and that content would be better than the vast majority of user curation through follows.

fundad3• 3 years ago

Hasn’t Twitter moved on to becoming the everything app like WeChat for video like YouTube?

Does Threads have to compete with Twitter for users or advertisers? I think people want to promote their YouTube channel and Threads has a lot of first-party tracking data.

dmoy2• 3 years ago

Hasn’t Twitter moved on to becoming the everything app like WeChat for video like YouTube?

I am having difficulty parsing this. What do you mean?

maxfurman• 3 years ago

I think it's sarcasm

fundad3• 3 years ago

X the everything app. It’s very different from Threads

motoxpro3• 3 years ago

This isn't a critique of Threads, this a commentary on the nature of social graphs and different identities in different spaces. People use IG different than they use Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, etc.

You could get the same experience on Twitter by following Dora the Explorer, Procter and Gamble, your uncle, and Brian Chesky but you have chosen to have a specific experience in that app by curating your feed.

A better example, port LinkedIn's graph to Snapchat and it would seem like absolute nonsense.

IG ported a visual social graph to a text based app, this, by definition, isn't going to produce the most optimal experience. Thats 100% fine though, you'll realize who is good at posting text content, follow them, you'll unfollow the people that are not good, etc.

This is why TikTok was interesting in the first place because it removed the curation step and created an interest graph instead of a social one. What the poster is talking about is the friction inheirent to using a social graph as a proxy for an interest graph.

"I love when you talk about tech but I don't care at all about your dog."

weebull• 3 years ago

I agree, but it allowed meta to say they had a bajillion users from day one, and make the news. Nothing worse than an empty social network to make people run away.

motoxpro3• 3 years ago

Totally. I think they did the exact right thing. Brilliant strategy because not only does it kick start the network, but it introduces a entirely new group of people to text based social media that never tried/were into Twitter.

phailhaus3• 3 years ago

There's the similar but related problem of "I'm more interested in creative posts today, but there's no way for me to register that intent". So what ends up happening on sites like TikTok is that you have to start very quickly swiping through your feed until something related pops up, and pausing for too long will undo your progress.

CharlesW• 3 years ago

So what ends up happening on sites like TikTok is that you have to start very quickly swiping through your feed until something related pops up, and pausing for too long will undo your progress.

FYI, TikTok also has explicit like/dislike signals. For example, you can love posts, or long-press the video and choose "Not Interested".

delecti• 3 years ago

Instagram's "explore" page works pretty excellently for this; each post on the grid there is essentially a separate feed. For example on mine the top several posts are: queer art, Zelda, car crash videos, less specific art, 40k memes, politics relevant to me, cat memes, and so on. Each of those is something that Instagram has good reason to think I'd like, and the posts stay fairly consistent with the vibe of the first post as I scroll through any of those feeds.

coolbreezetft222• 3 years ago

The way I used twitter (and now threads) is just by navigating directly to the URL of the accounts I want to read. I'd discover other accounts I'd want to "follow" usually via re-tweets.

In this way Threads is going to be the exact same experience for me as long as the same accounts I read on Twitter are posting on Threads.

haolez2• 3 years ago

I get this a lot on Twitter. There is a very interesting tech account that I follow that half the time is complaining about British politics. It's really frustrating, since I don't want to ditch the tech posts

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

agreed, pre-social media people “stayed on brand” because thats all you ever saw of them

nobody needs to know their favorite stoic keynote speaker does anything else

cglong2• 3 years ago

I was briefly in a Facebook A/B test that automatically categorized every post by everyone. I then had the option to "Unfollow Alice for posts about Politics". It was glorious, and I always wonder why they never released that broadly.

motoxpro3• 3 years ago

Half response/half commentary:

I think it just comes down to if you see yourself as an entertainer or not.

Social media based on a social graph forces you to be niche because you have to be that proxy for interest. i.e. it's. better to have three people who post about tech, British politics, and Seinfeld separately than one person who posts about Seinfeld one day, politics the next and tech the next because it is impossible for me to curate my feed correctly.

Ironically, If you ONLY posted about the tech of all of the political scenes in Seinfeld that included British actors, that would be fine.

If you don't see yourself as an entertainer, or put another way, if you're not trying to build an audience, then you can bring your whole self or post about whatever you're interested and passionate about knowing that people will be upset when you don't post what they are interested in and that you won't build as big of a following.

hdivocic• 3 years ago

A 50% hit rate is pretty good.

There is a widespread tendency on HN to complain about various forms of noise/distraction. Whether it is the unusability of the web without an ad blocker, or the apparently impossible task of using Google these days (too many useless links returned).

I strongly feel that, unless you have some acknowledged difficulty in dealing with extraneous information, it is just not reasonable to expect the world's data to be presented to you prefiltered, "on a plate". If you do have a recognized problem with information overload, you'll have to accept that some info sources are not for you. This is not ableism.

mistyhands• 3 years ago

can I ask what account, out of curiosity?

bandyaboot• 3 years ago

I had a similar experience on Twitter. There was this guy who used to talk a lot about technical details related to his successful rocket business. But over time that stuff was replaced by right-wing culture war politics. Sad.

bl_valance• 3 years ago

Threads will be good for brands since they won't have to worry about controversial content, though eventually everything is going to be bland content if you are being censored to what Meta thinks is "appropriate". Though could be interesting if they pivot towards a more topics/community model.

bugglebeetle3• 3 years ago

..Instagram will happily show its users an almost endless feed of softcore pornography?

charcircuit• 3 years ago

As opposed to Twitter happily showing users an almost endless feed of hardcore pornography?

jb122• 3 years ago

Reality TV has been softcore pornography for about a decade now, advertisers have no issue with it

fknorangesite3• 3 years ago

But then turn around and ban actual, non-porn sex ed accounts.

threeseed3• 3 years ago

Only if you subscribe to it. And it's no different to what you see on Netflix etc.

cactusplant7374• 3 years ago

I actually think Twitter is pretty bland because it's a lot of old topics being rehashed with no new information: vaccines, gender identity, and the culture wars. The only reason people are talking about these things is because of Elon. There is no current event that precipitated them.

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

vaccines, gender identity, and the culture wars. The only reason people are talking about these things is because of Elon. There is no current event that precipitated them.

Gender identity politics are tied to a rather high frequency stream of current events; similar to racial politics in the 1950s-1960s, as are the culture wars of which they are a major current battleground (again, just as racial politics were in the 1950s-1960s.)

For vaccines, the main driving force for the issue’s current attention is RFK, Jr.’s Presidential campaign, which is certainly a current event.

If you think Elon is the reason people are talking about those things and not current events, you need to crawl out of whatever filter bubble is shielding you from current events (or just stopping arguing based on your supposed knowledge of them if you are content in that bubble.)

coolbreezetft222• 3 years ago

Why is any content that wouldn't be censored considered "bland"? How much of the HN top page at any given time would be considered 'inappropriate' by meta and censored? Is the content on HN bland?

BbzzbB• 3 years ago

What kind of content are people looking for that they can't find on a Meta-filtered feed? Pretty sure I'll get to see all my finance, programming and shitposting content I get on Twitter in there, what am I missing out on?

jonnycomputer• 3 years ago

Given what Meta has done to Instagram, and hell, for that matter Facebook*, why would I even take a look at "Threads".

Blog people. Blog.

* with its ridiculously overloaded stream of sponsored content and quasi-pornographic Reels (which would get blocked if I posted it to my timeline but seems to be just fine on their compete-with-TikTok Reels platform. It's not that I object to pornographic or quasi-pornographic content. It's that I object to it being shoved into my feed when I'm looking at photos of my friends beach vacation, or pictures of nephews and nieces, right? Stay in your goddam lane Facebook.

ezfe2• 3 years ago

quasi-pornographic Reels

All my reels are puppies and memes so...not sure what you're doing to your Instagram

r3trohack3r• 3 years ago

I’ve heard this a lot on both sides, but have been on the sidelines until about 2 months ago.

I finally caved and got back onto Facebook after nearly 10 years off.

The first night I went in, added all of the people in my local BNI chapter and everyone I knew from my gym. My goal was to focus exclusively on local community building and staying in touch with people I’d probably see again soon.

I closed out of the app for the night, came back the next morning, and my timeline was 20% women in a jungle setting taking off their clothing. We counted, it was 1 in 5 posts.

Unless they already had a shadow profile for me, this seems to be some sort of default for my demographic (gender and age). I can’t imagine “small business and gym” would yield this outcome.

It has taken almost a month to eliminate actual soft pornography from my timeline by reporting it. But still my timeline is full of sexually suggestive and offensive material.

In fact, my timeline is only about 33% my local community. Everything else is a hodgepodge of random garbage content getting jammed into my feed. From DIY pro-tips that’ll get you killed to sexually suggestive memes.

I wish I could turn off recommended content.

It’s confirmed my reason for being reluctant to rejoin Meta for the last 10 years. I’ve almost caved and purchased the Oculus, but I’m back in the “nope, no Meta” camp. Facebook is a downright awful experience, both technically, socially, and mentally.

PawgerZ2• 3 years ago

I get cats, dogs, and memes, but I can't escape occasional terrible 4chan posts, people dying in car crashes, and, yeah, quasi-pornographic reels.

I assume their algorithm for me points my interest in technology and memes to 4chan reposts; my interest in the gym and weightlifting to nearly naked women; and I have no clue why it wants me to watch people die.

This is all speculation from me trying to follow the data points I assume they know about me. But I don't want to see those posts -- I always use the not interested button, don't interact, and my other traffic on Instagram really shouldn't point me this way.

All this said, I don't use Instagram as much anymore, and have been entertaining deleting my account. I haven't yet because I advertise and communicate on Instagram quite a bit.

pixl972• 3 years ago

Blog people. Blog.

Because you, me, and Mr McGee read blogs. Meanwhile a billion other people thumb through bite size 'info-oids' at levels of ADHD never before seen and don't put up enough objection to the half nude crap to make a difference.

_dain_• 3 years ago

is this meant to be an argument against blogs? why would you even want the latter audience

fknorangesite3• 3 years ago

quasi-pornographic Reels

Meh you're just telling on yourself, here. Mark them as not-interested. My feed is all scale models and noodle recipes.

ScottEvtuch• 3 years ago

I hear this defense a lot, but isn't it kind of problematic that a platform makes you go out of your way to tell them you prefer not to see soft-core porn? I didn't even know TikTok had a "Not Interested" button until someone told me in person. It's completely hidden.

I've personally seen this come up on a lot of different social media apps that feature video content. They all initially throw a bunch of vaguely pornographic content at you to start with and continue doing so unless you keep opting out for long enough. I kinda wonder how many users never make it past the initial onslaught and just assume the entire platform is like that.

nbow2• 3 years ago

I think that threads is gonna be more successful than people realize. bluesky and mastodon are both still just novelties because it's neigh impossible to migrate social media audiences. Even if Oprah has a mastodon that's not really gonna do much of the platform is fragmented and empty.

Personally, I am enjoying using threads. Insta has been my only real social media presence for a while now and there are people in my feed already posting entertaining stuff. It means threads gets a huge headstart.

In addition to this, Meta dwarfs Twitter as an organization both in numbers and technical talent, especially after Musk's immature firing spree. I don't think any emergency service accounts will be getting rate limited on their threads account.

Meta smells blood in the water and is doing what any good mega corporation does and capitalizing on it.

skilled4• 3 years ago

I think you are completely wrong and in a few days Threads will be forgotten just like Vision Pro was. Hard to take opinion’s seriously when they’ve been clearly influenced by the media machine.

Nobody is going to give up their real estate on Twitter just because Instagram added a “create a text-based Insta account” button.

Let that sink in…

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

People really just like the drama, you can tell with the “smells blood in the water” bit.

boc2• 3 years ago

I would agree if A) Threads didn't just add 100M users overnight, and B) if Twitter wasn't a spam-filled shitshow.

It's undeniable that Twitter is a failing product. Their advertisements are literal basement-tier garbage... I see the type of ads that normally fill your spam inbox. The blue checkmarks seem like they're all Elon sycophants and thus you are forced to interact with a bunch of weirdos as the top replies to any post. It just feels like walking into a Walmart at 1am, vs Threads which feels like Target on a weekday.

callalex3• 3 years ago

“Threads will be forgotten just like Vision Pro was”

This statement makes absolutely no sense, considering you are using the past tense to refer to a product that hasn’t even been built and released yet.

nbow2• 3 years ago

Existing inside a media hype bubble does wonders for traction, but it's not the only way a platform gains users. It also happens when your friends keeps linking you to the posts they read on it.

Twitter is looking more and more like a dead mall with the most insane possible management. Diehard shoppers huddled the last couple active sections.

This is not good the internet. But the further consolidation is on Elon's hands, not metas. If want a healthy internet back it's gonna take bell labs levels of antitrust enforcement, which won't be happening. Twitter will likely be flattened under the weight of their clear technical superiority in the sector.

boc2• 3 years ago

Once people realize that they just need to go follow their Twitter follows on Threads (instead of just their insta followers), Threads starts feeling like a way cleaner version of Twitter. And that's before they add most of the features like hashtags, trending, follow topics, DMs, etc.

I thought I would get burned out on Threads but it's still keeping my interest.

the_snooze• 3 years ago

I followed that strategy and was happy to see that the sports accounts I like hopped on Threads too. However, I only want to see those accounts. When they don't post much (as is the case right now during the offseason), Threads spams you with all sorts of random celebrities and influencers, who have nothing to do with the sports accounts I like.

threeseed3• 3 years ago

Why Meta’s “Everything For Everyone” Approach Is Unlikely To Succeed

100m users and fastest growing social network in history.

And that's without EU, no desktop or iPad apps and missing key features like chronological timeline.

Sure seems like it's succeeding to me.

rvz3• 3 years ago

Exactly. The fastest growing social network and product adoption in history. With 100M users in 5 days. Already destroyed OpenAI's record and eclipsing the so-called 'Fediverse' 10 times over. At this point; they are the new Fediverse.

But I do remember many hysterical comments about 'Meta is dying' and the regular 'Instagram algorithm bad' complaining and finally the insane calls to 'Fire Mark Zuckerberg' nonsense here.

Now this should definitively prove which I have already said before, that the poorly aged and the constant calls and deranged predictions of the death of Meta Platforms, has been greatly exaggerated.

A magnificent and successful recovery with the stock up over 200% since the low of $89.

welshwelsh• 3 years ago

The 100M stat means nothing to me because of integration with Instagram. It's not like they cultivated an audience of 100M people in 5 days.

Suppose Instagram added the ability to create text threads in addition to photos, except they did this as an Instagram feature instead of a separate app. A week later, we find that 10% of Instagram users viewed one of these threads. Would that be significant?

_Algernon_2• 3 years ago

OpenAI had organic growth which is not directly comparable to a product launched off of existing Instagram users.

troupo• 3 years ago

Facebook has to convert those numbers they got through borderline deceptive patterns into actual active users.

ypeterholmes• 3 years ago

Twitter has the same "problem" but has been wildly successful... The odd thing about twitter is that nobody could ever figure out what is really was. Still haven't.

shmatt• 3 years ago

TikTok is everything for literally everyone. And its done well because their algorithm feels like magic. There is no problem with that approach if its done well. Still to early to rate the Threads algorithm

Everyone should listen to the Reply All episode about the TikTok algorithm, its pretty mind blowing

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3h78d6

m3kw9• 3 years ago

Twitter already tried communities, and it didn’t work out too well. The problem is it doesn’t work with tweets, as in tweets are too separate.

Fb is either gonna pivot into full Reddit or they need to invent some hybrid thing that won’t be a Twitter competitor anymore. They will likely find out why Twitter had difficulty in getting more users to use it

axlee2• 3 years ago

100M signups in five days is impressive at first glance. However, if you do some quick math, you will see that 100M signups (defined by install the app + click a button that says signup with your Instagram account) out of 3.8 billion monthly active Meta users is 3% of their users, i.e. 3 out of 100 Meta users did a low effort action (one-click signup) in the midst of a huge product news cycle.

Threads isn't available in Europe (~500M population), Meta MAU != Instagram MAU, and 5 days isn't 30 days.

burnished• 3 years ago

Isnt that figure more like a proxy for 'current active users'? Comparing the number of days doesn't seem correct

axlee2• 3 years ago

Instagram has 500M DAU / 2B MAU. A huge chunk of Meta's MAU come from Whatsapp, and Threads isn't promoted there.

duped2• 3 years ago

I'm a meta user and can't login because I don't have an instagram account. I wouldn't hate checking out threads but I can't really be bothered to download another app, sign up, then go to this app, and login. Seems like a waste.

SketchySeaBeast• 3 years ago

Ah, but you don't have to. Just use your Facebook account to sign into Instagram and then sign into Threads with that. Facebook will thank you for saving them the smallest of effort it takes to connect your identities.

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

Alot of nothing in this post. Or alot of nothing that hasn't already been said in the last week.

If you think twitter is only text based where have you been for like 10 years.

The real problem right now is threads has weak discoverability, terrible algorithm modding (like, telling it what you want to see and not....how do you get rid of accounts, mute? hide?), and lack of quality content that can't already be found elsewhere. It's just an alsoran. DOA after people stop signing up to it out of curiosity.

yankput• 3 years ago

Not directly related but… Twitter is really so bad lately

Musk has not just tipped his fingers in the politics; he just went full-on hard right; it resembles 4chan now more than anything

while the site itself just plainly doesn’t work anymore, and things now randomly fail

4chan is fine for what it is; but there is a reason why you have just scammy porn and NFT ads on 4chan

on the other hand I now tried Trump’s Pravda [1], it seems it works fine, but all the ads there are for some scammy “patriotic” insurance companies. It’s a direction to go, just maybe not worth the 44 billion.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda

leonidasv• 3 years ago

The biggest mistake of Threads was allowing videos and photos from day one. It became a dumpster of Instagram reposts, almost no new content. And the feed algorithm is very, very bad.

elforce002• 3 years ago

I called it a while back. Threads is going to canibalize ig. The "friendly" approach is basically for brands.

kornork• 3 years ago

"Twitter censored content at the request of the Turkish government"

What are we expecting here? If there's a legal requirement Twitter has to follow, vs getting banned, what should they do?

Do we believe for a second that Meta/Threads will do anything differently?

pasttense01• 3 years ago

"In addition, having real identity as a feature could enable building more trustworthy communities that could go beyond online discussions.."

No. It's just not safe to provide your real identity on the internet except in narrow situations (such as friends and family or businesses you are buying goods and services from). Problems arise with employers, crazies, law enforcement... The last situation I was just reading about was: "Reddit Asks Court to Protect Users Right to Anonymous Speech in Piracy Case"

https://torrentfreak.com/reddit-asks-court-to-protect-users-...

kneebonian• 3 years ago

3 Rules on the internet

1. Never give out real personal info

2. Don't believe anything you see on the internet

3. Everyone woman on the internet is a dude and every teenager is an FBI agent.

Everything went to hell when we stopped living by those 3 rules.

BasedAnon• 3 years ago

all of the time

dahwolf3• 3 years ago

"100M signups in five days is impressive at first glance. However, if you do some quick math, you will see that 100M signups (defined by install the app + click a button that says signup with your Instagram account) out of 3.8 billion monthly active Meta users is 3% of their users"

Speaking of math, MAU means active at least once per month, which can be as meaningless as being triggered by a notification. Also, a month is longer than a week.

The 3% signup percentage is nonsense because only 1/4th of a month has passed. Even after a full month it's a guessed number because you have to know how often the "sign up" banner was served (and seen) to actually active users.

Calling a 1 million new users PER HOUR "not a slam dunk".

dahwolf3• 3 years ago

My take on these entertaining social network breakdown times is this: Twitter refugees, in particular the power users, cannot succeed anywhere else. Their inflated status is bound to Twitter and Twitter only.

On Threads, they drown in cheap largely non-political entertainment, memes, fashion, influencer-style Insta content. Meta even openly stated this to be the goal: fun over news/politics.

Mastodon is too small, fractured and dysfunctional for Twitter power users. There's no cultural significance as it's a network of misfits with no mainstream reach.

helsinkiandrew• 3 years ago

100M signups in five days is impressive at first glance. However, if you do some quick math, you will see that 100M signups (defined by install the app + click a button that says signup with your Instagram account) out of 3.8 billion monthly active Meta users is 3% of their users.

Some better math is 100M out of the 750M or so active monthly users of Instagram outside the EU ~13%

Although many of those will have signed up to see what’s going on and won’t turn into DAU and MAU

sandspar• 3 years ago

Threads doesn't strike me as a Twitter killer. It sounds like it's aiming to be an app based entirely around "The Dodo" level content. I wouldn't worry too much if I was Musk, but if I was the CEO of Pinterest then I'd be shitting my pants.

janalsncm• 3 years ago

There doesn’t need to be another Twitter killer. Elon Musk did that already by firing 80% of the staff. Every time Twitter goes down a few more people will go to Threads.

Instagram Threads: The problem with the “everything for everyone” approach

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