TL;DR
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Mark Zuckerberg has a problem… and he uses a tactic from the Web3 playbook to solve it. (ICYMI: Meta just launched its own Twitter competitor ‘Threads’).
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The problem is…Meta is pretty bad at making standalone clones of social platforms. Meta has tried and failed to create standalone clones of Snap, Substack, Pinterest, and TikTok.
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The major bottleneck with all these clones was their (lack of) network effects. That is, they offered the same experience as their competitors, but they were total ghost towns.
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To solve the “ghost town problem” with Threads, he takes one of Web3 social’s best features and adds it to the platform.
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That function is: your friends join you, on different platforms (from Instagram to Threads).
Full story
Mark Zuckerberg has a problem… and he uses a tactic from the Web3 playbook to solve it.
ICYMI: Meta (formerly Facebook) just launched its own Twitter competitor ‘Threads’.
The problem is…
Meta is pretty bad at making standalone clones of social platforms.
Do you remember:
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Catapult?
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Bulletin?
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Hobby?
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Lasso?
No? Neither! But they were (in descending order) Meta created/owned/failed clones of: Snapchat, Substack, Pinterest, and TikTok.
Hell, they even launched and shut down an app called “Threads” in 2019 (which was originally designed as another Snapchat competitor).
The major bottleneck with all these clones was their (lack of) network effects.
That is, Zuck’s cloned platforms offered the same experience as their competitors, but were total ghost towns.
(Which meant there was no clear incentive for users to take the plunge).
So what’s the solution?
In the past it was to add the clone’s main function to Instagram – think: Stories (Snapchat) and Reels (TikTok).
But IG feels like it’s at its breaking point in terms of feature filling… and it looks like Zuck knows it.
To solve the “ghost town problem” with Threads, he takes one of Web3 social’s best features and adds it to the platform.
That property is: your friends join you, on different platforms.
All your Instagram followers who create a Threads account will be automatically added as followers on your Threads account.
Which means that the ‘ghost town problem’ is quickly resolved right out of the gate. It is smart!
…whether it will work in the long run? That remains to be seen.