What the Tech: App of the Day, Threads
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Another week and another company launches a Twitter-type social platform.
This time though, it’s Meta. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram released Threads, a micro-blogging platform that’s similar to Twitter (too similar according to Twitter).
Few apps garnered the hype and publicity of Threads in its first week in the app stores and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasts it has over 55 million s in just two days. Questions about this app?
Here’s what you need to know before FOMO (fear of missing out) forces you to and install it:
- Threads is a separate Instagram app. You must have an Instagram to sign up.
- Your Threads is tied to your Instagram .
- Your handle or name will be the same for both Threads and Instagram.
- Once installed, you cannot delete your Threads without deleting your Instagram .
- You can make it inactive and you can delete the app from your phone but you’ll still have an .
- There is a 500-character limit.
- Threads can be liked and you can comment on them just like on Twitter.
- There are no hashtags. You can use them but you can’t search for those hashtags to follow a discussion.
- There are no ‘trending topics’ which is a much-loved feature of Twitter.
- You can follow other s unless the s are marked as ‘private’. Private Threads s will be asked to allow you to follow them.
- You can set your Threads as private.
- There are no ‘feeds’ where you can see only Threads from people you follow.
- Threads that appear in your timeline are a mixture of people you follow and Threads Meta believes you’ll want to see based on its algorithm.
Threads is concerning. According to the App Store description, Threads collects the following data and information from its s:
- Health & Fitness
- Financial Info
- Info
- Content
- Browsing History
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
- Purchases
- Location
- s
- Search History
- Identifiers
- Sensitive Info
- Other Data
“Other” could be anything or everything. Note, this is the same for both Instagram and Facebook.
As for the missing features, Meta says it is working to add features to Threads which may include things Twitter s have come to love such as feeds, hashtags, and trending topics.
Threads is free for iPhone and Android devices. Free because Meta is earning revenue from s’ data for advertising. Threads by Instagram is rated for ages 12 years old and older.
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