Was blown away over the weekend that one of my threads had a sort of viral moment. It wasn’t crazy viral, but enough people saw it that I went from 30 followers to almost 300 followers overnight. I’ve never had a thread get that much attention (or a tweet for that matter). It was a fun experience.

I think I slept on Threads a bit. It’s so difficult to wrap your mind around yet another app to try and use when there a so many that I’ve tried and abandoned. However, I think that there is a lot of potential with threads for a few reasons.

1. It is not inundated with ads

I know they are going to have to figure out a way to make it financially sustainable at some point, but they seem to be taking the patient approach. This is exactly how Mark Zuckerberg approached Facebook in the early days. He wanted to make sure that the user experience was good before he started trying to monetize it. I think that is a good approach here and it could be a while before Threads gets out of control with ads. For the same reason that Facebook was able to outlast MySpace, I think that Threads could outlast Twitter (or X, I should say.)

2. There are more genuine interactions than Twitter…for now.

Since Threads does not have an established formula for how to monetize, I think that there are less people trying to hack the system. So, there are less cringy posts trying to bait for clicks (although there is some of that) than there are on other platforms. I’ve had so many more genuine conversations and interactions with “real” people than I’ve ever had on Twitter.

3. The timing hit just right for Threads to establish itself.

It’s no secret that users and companies are fleeing X right now. I don’t think that Threads planned it as perfectly as it happened, unless they are in cahoots with Elon Musk somehow, but Threads came on the scene as a perfect alternative to X. I think there was a clear opportunity, which is why other competitors have attempted to fill the gap (Truth Social, etc.) but Threads has such a broader appeal right now because of its positioning as a positive alternative to X.

I’m excited to see where Threads goes from here. My goal with it is to simply have fun and post, reply to others, and interact with people. I’m not trying to build a following or anything like that although it was really fun seeing the follower count run up over the weeked. It is a refreshing place to be right now and I hope it stays that way.