Doug Brown

Thirty million may have signed up for Meta's newly launched Threads app, but what do its users actually think?

Threads , pitched as a " friendly" rival to Twitter, has many similar features to The Other Social Media platform.

Its lead feature is allowing users to instantly create a network with people they follow on Instagram.

And Steven Bridges, a YouTuber with 448k followers, told The Bbc he saw Threads as a " much-needed competitor" to Twitter.

" Right now, there are a lot of people not happy at all with how Twitter's being run, " He Said .

" Threads gives them a potentially viable place to engage in the same way that they would use Twitter.

" People sort of know that Meta can run a Social Media company, so it gives a little bit of confidence that as it scales it will Stick Around and hopefully be well-moderated. "

Steven said that he expected Threads to see an influx of content creators, who will typically create profiles on new Social Media platforms to attract an Audience .

" Almost every influencer, whether they like it or not, or whether they want Threads to succeed or fail, will be hopping on Threads just in case it does succeed, " He Said .

" There is potentially a small advantage or a large advantage to being an early adopter of Threads - you certainly will have less people in the Threads ecosystem, so maybe you can get more followers quicker or something like that.

" Particularly, it's going to be relevant to new influencers that want to gain an Audience . . because if you post early and post regularly, perhaps you'll grow as The Platform itself grows. "

Dhruti Shah, creative lead at consultancy Have You Thought About and a former BBC journalist, called Threads " really exciting" as a new platform, but said it might be hard for users to cut through The Noise .

" Right now it honestly feels like you're at an Ice Skating rink, where everybody's jumping on and everyone's piling in, " She Said .

" Some People say they're going to be super amazing, because they've got a voice everywhere and A Brand and a platform.

" Other People Like Me - because I'm not The Best ice Skater - are slipping and sliding and hoping that they don't get their fingers cut by falling over.

" That can be fun, but it does mean it's going to take a bit of time to understand what Threads is actually for, and when you're in a place that's really fast-paced, it can be quite overwhelming. "

Meanwhile, Doug Brown , an artist and Edinburgh black Cab Driver , said he was interested in Threads as it brought together elements from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

" If I was to create a social networking app, I'd definitely model my app with The Best of what The Top Social Media apps offers us, " He Said .

" Threads by Instagram for me has achieved that, the Threads app looks like Twitter, but the app has brought a lot of the easy-to-use features from Instagram and Facebook together.

" So Far I'm impressed with Threads . "

Dr Ysabel Gerrard, senior lecturer in digital communication at the University of Sheffield, wondered if any app could truly " replace" Twitter.

" I just don't know if that really can happen, because Twitter was its own thing, " She Said .

" It had its own vibe and you were never going to be able to recreate What Happened , because that culture accumulated over years and years and years".

" [Threads ] is so tied to Instagram in terms of functionality, even just the branding, the associations that we're all making when we talk about it and in The Press , and so on. I think it's going to be seen as almost like a TV programme spin off. That's how I see it in my mind. "

Source of news: bbc.com