> One technique we use to tune the experience quickly was to make iteration in the product itself very easy. We did this using server driven UI. In a traditional client-server model, the client is responsible for everything about how the data is laid out on-screen. The server is just middleware pulling data out from stores. What we did was for the core interfaces which showed a list of posts, we instead sent down a full view model, which told the client exactly how to render it.
> This meant that when we were experimenting on the call to action and the reply bar, or when and how we show different reply face files, we could do that with just a code change on the server, which only takes a couple of hours to roll out and takes effect on all platforms.
> This let us iterate on the core Threading UI very quickly in the early days.
Given that the sum total of their four goals is a text based social network that is interoperable with the fediverse wouldn't the natural codebase to start from be Mastadon? I'm sure using IG came with a lot of benefits but given they had to punt on the fediverse interop, their most important thing outside of Threads working, starting with a base that speaks the protocol you want to adopt has got to count for something.
It isn't. Instagram logo and urls still show up in all kinds of random places.
Moderation has been a disaster (my account got banned for a week twice for some random person not liking what I wrote. So that's not conducive to being a 'discussion' platform).
And now I am starting to see tons of shit Russian bots ("0 Follower accounts with right wing views"). Same as Twitter really.
I'm confused. Where's the postmortem on how Threads failed? Why is this talk structured like a victory lap?
In a time when users wanted to flee Twitter desperately, they could have launched a clone and likely won. Instead, they "kept it simple". They lacked even the most basic features, to the point where you signed up for Threads and found nothing at all which turned users away.
This is a talk about how to launch a successful app!? That seems totally disconnected from reality. No one should be learning any positive lessons from this.
On the business side, I am with you and I don't use Threads at all (or know anyone in my circle who does)
This talk is from a technical perspective - and whatever your thoughts on Threads are, it is a great technical feat to launch something of that scale in 5 months!
Can't think of any company that comes close to Meta in the speed of shipping features and products, and Threads app is the best example
It's a huge success, you're just not paying attention. In terms of feature it's been getting better and better every week since launch. These guys can ship
Sure. That's why Brazil fled to Bluesky instead of Threads when Twitter was blocked. It's probably successful among boomers and whoever already has another account with meta.
I'm not sure how that's entirely relevant. Success of another platform doesn't imply failure of another platform. It's also relatively common for different regions of the world to settle into different social media networks and messaging systems. See: Whatsapp vs iMessage, VKontakte, WeChat, telegram and so on.
There's plenty of metrics to support the fact that Threads is a successful launch.
More like 175M Threads users alone. They have already been set up for success given Meta's userbase. Now they have to herd that demographic among their different apps, so it was only logical to have a Twitter alternative in order to retain their usebase and profit from Elon's task oriented leadership that has materialized in Xwitter shedding users.
In the 2000s the population of the internet, even though pretty mainstream by then, was still made up of enough proactive, deliberate, conscientious people to be able to trigger a MySpace to Facebook type migration.
On today's internet it's no longer possible. The full population is here and it's overall too passive and docile. The biggest sites won't be disrupted anymore. Twitter is certainly deprecated. But just like our uncles and grandparents will keep Facebook alive for 20 more years, so it will be with Twitter. Threads was never going to be able to change that.
Except for the part where Meta used the immense network effects of Facebook and Instagram to repeatedly advertise Threads to their audience and harass them into trying it out.
It's pretty bad. AOL for 2024. Absolutely braindead users though it's hyper-leftist (read: the anti-Twitter) if you're into that. Riddled with engagement spam and people posting generic questions ("what's a good restaurant in [city]") instead of googling.
Yes, I had to stop using it after most posts were basically complaining about Twitter and Elon. If I wanted to read about those topics, I'd, well, be on Twitter.
I'm not impressed. I can totally imagine single person building the app under 5 months.
Well, of course, it will not have the best UI or recommendation algorithm or marketing stuff, but I don't think those are in the critical path on the building of the app. I expected that a company like Meta can build apps like this in weeks.
It got me thinking that, in terms of building software 0 to 1, maybe the scalability of head count is surprisingly low.
> One technique we use to tune the experience quickly was to make iteration in the product itself very easy. We did this using server driven UI. In a traditional client-server model, the client is responsible for everything about how the data is laid out on-screen. The server is just middleware pulling data out from stores. What we did was for the core interfaces which showed a list of posts, we instead sent down a full view model, which told the client exactly how to render it.
> This meant that when we were experimenting on the call to action and the reply bar, or when and how we show different reply face files, we could do that with just a code change on the server, which only takes a couple of hours to roll out and takes effect on all platforms.
> This let us iterate on the core Threading UI very quickly in the early days.