Here is what we know about it so far:
- It will most likely be called Threads.
- It is not known what domain it will use for usernames.
- In mockup screenshots, a user replies to someone using an
@mastodon.socialhandle, it’s very likely that they will federate. - It will be side app of Instagram. It’s not clear how much of the new network will be baked into the main app.
- Your username and verification status will carry over, so early adopters won’t have an advantage for their preferred username.
- Your followers will not carry over but there will be an easy way to pick and follow people on your Instagram list.
Personal observations:
- Many people that I talked to about it think that this will be Meta’s attempt at an “EEE”.
- Some Mastodon instance admins that I chatted about it say that Meta will “likely attempt to pull their user data”, and they “will defederate immediately”.
I don’t use their products, so I won’t be joining in, but I am cautiously interested about their ActivityPub functionality.
Hopefully they’ll work with W3C with the standard (instead of building own extensions) and perhaps even open source some of their tools. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but one can hope.
Also - if all 1.2bn MAU’s from Insta are suddenly “fedi-enabled” maybe I’ll be able to follow some of the things that haven’t transitioned over the fediverse (chess players, Formula 1, NHL etc). Would be awfully nice.