Meta-owned Instagram has unveiled screenshots of an upcoming social media app, aimed at rivalling Twitter. The revelation was made during a companywide meeting on Thursday, according to the report by The Verge.
Notably, Meta has already initiated conversations with big-name personalities such as Oprah and the Dalai Lama, aiming to bring them on board as early users of the platform.
The new standalone app, which was previewed by one of Meta’s top executives, integrates Instagram with ActivityPub, a decentralized social media protocol. This innovative feature will theoretically allow users to take their accounts and followers along with them to other ActivityPub-supporting apps, including Mastodon.
During the meeting, Chris Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, dubbed the new app as “our response to Twitter.” According to internal documents, the app is currently codenamed “Project 92,” but there is speculation that its public name could be “Threads.”
Cox revealed that the company had been receiving feedback from creators and public figures seeking a platform that is ‘sanely run.’ He directly criticized Elon Musk’s management of Twitter while emphasizing Meta’s goals for the new app: “safety, ease of use, reliability,” and offering creators a “stable place to build and grow their audiences.”
Meta has already got commitments from a few celebrities, including DJ Slime, and is negotiating with other high-profile figures. The development of the app started in January, and according to Cox, it will be released “as soon as possible.”
Last month, we also saw screenshots of Instagram’s Twitter clone, which was called a “text-based app for conversations”. The design of this Twitter competitor takes from Instagram, down to the font, like, comment and direct message icons. For those that want an alternative to Twitter after it was acquired by Elon Musk, this might be the one as it leverages an existing Instagram login and userbase.
