Like tens of tens of millions of others, I downloaded Threads onto my cellphone yesterday and signed up.

The factor that Twitter has been lacking because it killed off its ecosystem over a decade in the past is competitors. And as everyone knows, lack of competitors is a really dangerous factor. In governments and in merchandise.

Competitors retains you sincere. Competitors makes you hustle. Competitors forces you to innovate. Competitors makes you higher.

So I’m thrilled to see some actual competitors emerge for Twitter.

I’m additionally excited to see a scaled social media platform embrace an open protocol. Within the case of Threads, that protocol is Exercise Pub.

So far as I can inform, Threads doesn’t but assist ActivityPub however has dedicated to doing so.

I’ve not loved utilizing any social media apps constructed on the ActivityPub protocol, most notably Mastodon, however I’m not certain if that’s the fault of the protocol or Mastodon’s implementation. Hopefully, we are going to see a greater implementation with Threads.

However extra importantly, protocols which can be broadly used carry a lot of builders to them and people builders carry a lot of totally different concepts and merchandise.

So to me, Threads is about two actually vital issues:

1/ Competitors for Twitter. Lengthy overdue and badly wanted.

2/ The emergence of a broadly supported social media protocol. Which ought to produce a vibrant and interoperable social media ecosystem.

I’ve received some questions in my thoughts about how all of it will work.

What is going to identification seem like on this “vibrant and interoperable social media ecosystem?” It might probably’t be and hopefully gained’t be my Instagram deal with. Ideally, it might look one thing like ENS the place every one in every of us will personal and management our personal identification/deal with, like we are able to personal and management a website identify.

Will there be one protocol for all of social media (quick kind textual content, lengthy kind textual content, audio, video, and so on)? Will Instagram assist ActivityPub too, for instance?

What position will web3 play in all of this or will web3 social emerge on a special dimension totally?

The flexibility to even ask these questions and ponder the solutions is a present to me and to the world. And so, subsequently, is Threads.