48 Hours of Meta Threads

Do We Need Another Twitter Clone?

My followers on Twitter and Instagram don’t overlap. But my friends on IG and FB do. And so, Threads was intriguing for me. 🤔

Could this be “the one” I was looking for? Can this stitch my distressed social media attention together?

So, when Threads was released earlier this week I thought maybe here’s an alternative that may help retire my Twitter account to the recycle bin. Perhaps the bird can, maybe not immediately but over the course of time, fly into the sunset of repressed memory.

Even though I don’t consider Threads and Twitter to be direct competitors for my attention at this point in time, I can see a future where, if Zuck plays it right, I could completely move off of Twitter.

Not because I am an active tweeter. I am more of a consumer than a producer.

I’ve tried Twitter Threads. But my thread count barely reaches the Egyptian Cotton Sheets standard.

And that precisely is the reason.

I don’t need to increase the levels of my attention fragmentation. As an aspiring social media user, I need to consolidate it and be more productive with it than anything else. I want to be able to produce through re-use. As in, one thread of thought that can be molded to its most appropriate form for any given channel.

Am I Giving Up On Twitter?

I believe the majority of Twitter users are like me. In fact, I am willing to bet the majority of all Social Media users are like me. Mostly consuming, and sometimes producing content. The platforms are designed specifically for this type of user behavior in aggregate, so I get it. Attention is currency and you’d want the majority of users to be consumers of content, spending their attention currency on these platforms

To be clear - I don’t think Threads is ready to replace Twitter just yet. Despite the crazy user numbers. As folks in the business know, Total Users means squat in this business. What counts is engagement - MAU. We don’t know anything about engagement yet.

I have very little control over my Thread Spool as oppossed to my Tweet Stream. The algorithm is driving me a bit crazy with its seemingly random idea of what I might like to see (more on that later). 😖

But I see the potential.

The Net Of It

What no one seems to be talking about is the roadmap item of fediverse connectivity. If Threads can become the connecting thread to Mastadon and other federated services, then Threads can truly become the connecting fabric of my micro-blogging time.

For now, though, Twitter is for consumption and Thread is for engagement (for me).

And so… the Cage Match is on! 🥊

And it’s happening on my phone. 📲