Threads isn’t just the latest Twitter alternative; it’s the microblogging platform’s biggest threat to date.

But will Mark Zuckerberg’s and Meta’s newest product live up to the hype? 

Turned off by Twitter for various reasons — whether it’s been Elon Musk’s controversial leadership approach, what conservatives have seen as politically biased censorship prior to Musk buying the platform or something else — many users have sought an exit strategy, or already executed one.

There has been no shortage of alternatives — Parler, Truth Social, Mastodon, Bluesky and Spill among them. But with so many choices, social media users have not coalesced at any single one, leaving people looking to recapture that old Twitter magic feeling unfulfilled. 

Maybe Threads will prove to be just the landing spot they’re looking for. Maybe it won’t. But if anyone has the social media gravitas to pull it off, it figures to be Zuckerberg, who has his sights set on 1 billion users.

Meta launched Threads 1.0 on Wednesday evening, making it available in more than 100 countries on iOS and Android devices.  As of 11 a.m. Eastern time, it already had 30 million sign-ups, Zuckerberg said. 

“Feels like the beginning of something special, but we've got a lot of work ahead to build out the app,” he wrote.

Threads looks an awful lot like Twitter. But as Zuckerberg mentioned, it still needs work. 

Here are my first impressions of the app — the good and the bad — as well as what Meta says is in store for it.

The good

If you’re already on Instagram, signing up for Threads is a breeze. It uses your same log-in and handle. 

It also allows you to follow all the accounts you already follow on Instagram in a single click. If those users are not yet on Threads, you’d then instantly follow them if they do join. And those same accounts can find you just as easily, too.

This allows users to bypass those initial stages of trying to build up a following from scratch. In general on social media, attracting followers can be hard work and time-consuming, and early on, it can feel like you’re screaming into the void.

If you tend to be too long-winded for Twitter, you might enjoy that posts on Threads can be up to 500 characters long, as opposed to 280 on Musk’s platform. You can also include photos and videos up to 5 minutes in length. (The Twitter video maximum for most users is 2:20.)

Threads’ design is very clean and, for past Twitter users, very familiar. Underneath each post are options to like, comment, repost and share (oddly enough, one of the share choices allows you to tweet the message).

Click the three dots at the top, right corner of the message and you can mute or hide a post, block a user or report a post. 

There are also parental controls, options for inviting friends, privacy and notifications settings, and more.

The bad (at least initially)

Threads is light on the sort of features social media users have grown accustomed to, although, again, Meta says improvements are on the way.

First of all, the search feature only allows someone to look for other accounts, not keywords leading to threads. This essentially walls users off from seeing any comments from users they don’t already follow unless an account they follow reposts it or the Threads algorithm recommends it in their home feed.

There’s also no way to send a private message to another user.

And there’s no ability to divide the accounts you follow into lists or to view posts in your feed chronologically, features I rely on to monitor news on Twitter.

Your one and only Threads feed is a mix of people you follow and recommended content from other creators. Maybe it’s because the app is still so new, but there have been far too many posts in my feed from accounts I don’t follow and, to be honest, have no interest in ever following. And I’ve seen similar complaints from other users. 

Also, because Threads is technically an Instagram spinoff, I repeatedly found myself being bounced over to the Instagram app while perusing Threads’ settings and then hitting the back button, a frustrating user experience, to say the least. 

Also noticeably missing is a web-based version Threads. Currently, threads.net is a single page with a QR code to download the app. There’s no way yet to post from the web. You can view a user’s feed if you know their handle — for example, Zuckerberg’s account can be found at https://www.threads.net/@zuck — but that is, of course, a clunky process.

What’s in store?

While Meta has made it clear updates are forthcoming for Threads, it has been relatively tight-lipped about what future versions of the app might look like. 

What it has said is it will soon add “a number of new features to help you continue to discover threads and creators you’re interested in, including improved recommendations in feed and a more robust search function that makes it easier to follow topics and trends in real time.”

Spectrum News reached out to Meta on Thursday to ask about which other features specifically are in development, but a spokesperson did not share anything beyond what the company had already said publicly.

A big part of Meta’s vision — and a potential game-changer in the social media landscape — is to make Threads compatible with the ActivityPub open, decentralized social networking protocol.

What does that mean? Developers will be able to build new features and user experiences for open social networks, which Meta says will accelerate the pace of innovation and experimentation. And eventually, people using compatible apps would be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without even having a Threads account of their own. 

“Threads is Meta’s first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use,” Meta said in its announcement.

In the meantime, Meta says it’s excited to hear feedback from Threads’ users.