We already got a sense of what Instagram’s upcoming Twitter competitor might look like, and today’s leak just adds fuel to that fire.
The Verge got access to an internal meeting at Meta in which employees discussed the upcoming social media app. In the meeting, the company shared screenshots of what Project 92 (the internal codename of the product) will look like. The screenshots are very similar to what we saw with another leak back in May.
According to internal documents and the meeting, the app, which is straight up being called a “response to Twitter” by Meta chief product officer Chris Cox, could publicly be called Threads.
The forthcoming app, which, in the meeting today, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox called “our response to Twitter,” will use Instagram’s account system to automatically populate a user’s information. The internal codename for the app is “Project 92,” and its public name could be Threads, based on internal documents also seen by The Verge.
According to Cox, Project 92 is also being built as a platform that will be “sanely run,” without directly mentioning Elon Musk’s rollercoaster over at Twitter.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon distribution,” Cox said, throwing direct shade at Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter, to cheers from the audience. He said the company’s goal for the app was “safety, ease of use, reliability” and making sure that creators have a “stable place to build and grow their audiences.”
According to the leak back in May, the following features are expected to be available when the app launches:
- You can post text updates up to 500 characters (that’s less than an Instagram caption, an extended tweet, or a LinkedIn post so be concise!)
- You can attach links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes long
- You can engage with likes, replies, and reposts
It’s very much Twitter, but with the benefits of being able to connect your Instagram and followers from there. I’m personally willing to give it a go, especially since Twitter has been nothing but a total mess since last fall. We’ll see if Meta, of all things, becomes the real place that people choose as their Twitter alternative.
