Thoughts Unboxed

Twitter has been facing challenges and declining user engagement for years. Recent developments, including its takeover by Elon Musk, have added to the woes of the embattled micro-blogging platform. Amidst this backdrop, new competitors are vying to seize a piece of Twitter's pie, with Meta's Instagram Threads emerging as a potential instant threat.   According to Apple's App Store Listing, Instagram Threads is set to launch on July 6th. An early listing on Google's Play Store was also discovered over the weekend. Interestingly, Meta has taken a cautious marketing approach, presenting the app as "Instagram Threads" rather than "Meta Threads," likely aiming to leverage Instagram's popularity while avoiding Facebook's negative publicity. A web portal, threads.net, displays a countdown timer for the app launch, scheduled for 9 AM CST on July 6th.   Instagram Threads could gain substantial traction given Twitter's ongoin...

YouTube is bidding farewell to Stories , which allowed users to post time-bound content. Starting from June 26th, users will no longer be able to upload new stories, and existing stories will expire after 7 days. Originally introduced in 2017 as Reels , YouTube Stories enabled creators with over 10,000 subscribers to share updates and behind-the-scenes content that would automatically disappear after a set period. The feature aimed to combine the time-limited nature of Snapchat's content with TikTok's short video format. However, YouTube Stories failed to gain significant traction among both the users and the content creators. The feature was not effectively promoted by YouTube itself, which contributed to its lackluster adoption. As a result, YouTube is now shifting its focus to other content options, namely Community Posts and Shorts . Community Posts , a text-based update feature, allows creators to share their thoughts in writing rathe...