Billboard companies always give me PSD (Photoshop) templates and I don’t understand that at all. Who builds billboards in Photoshop?
Predictably, the mass media narrative about Instagram Threads is 100% Twitter vs. Threads and Elon vs. Zuckerberg. Mastodon, Bluesky, ActivityPub and Fediverse only rarely appear in news articles.
Just plotted out a walking loop inside our new office building. It’s too hot right now to walk outside at lunch.
So there are lots of rough edges on Threads, and it’s owned by Meta, which is problematic. But their killer feature is audience. I’ve been in for about 12 hours and I see lots of people I know. Will they stay? No idea. But it’s off to a solid start.
So I got access to Bluesky about 5 minutes after I started a Threads account. Lots to like about both, and I think they could both turn into solid Twitter alternatives. But I’m still happiest here on Micro.Blog.
The Instagram Threads launch and media effects theory
Yesterday, I mentioned I was interested in the media narrative surrounding the introduction of Instagram Threads. I wanted to expand on what I’m looking for, and to do that, I need to start with some mass communications theory.
I’m a Ph.D. student that mostly researches visual effects, but I’ve taken a few classes that look at how media effects work. There are levels to media effects, but essentially, you can break it into three types of effects.1
- Agenda Setting tells you what to think about.
- Framing tells you how to think about it.
- Priming prompts you to take an action.
Everyone teaches this a little differently, but this is how I like to think about it. As I look at how the media covers Instagram’s Thread, I think it’s worth thinking about the coverage in these terms.
Agenda Setting
The media is very good and setting the “agenda” for what people...
I don’t know much about how wine is made, but after reading Maggie Harrison’s War on Wine, I’m fascinated with the whole process…
This article on the The Verge about the changing social media environment resonated with me.
You could argue, I suppose, that this is just the natural end of a specific part of the internet. We spent the last two decades answering a question — what would happen if you put everyone on the planet into a room and let them all talk to each other? — and now we’re moving onto the next one. It might be better this way. But the way it has all changed, and the speed with which it has happened, has left an everybody-sized hole in the internet.
Three questions ahead of the release of Instagram's Threads
I looks like Meta will release their text-based, Instagram-branded Twitter competitor this week. Am I excited about Instagram Threads? Not really. I’m happy with the current state of my social media usage.
Am I curious about it? Absolutely. We are in a fascinating period of change in the services we use online and the ways we share information. Specifically, I’m interested in three questions:
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Will Instagram users actually adopt it? This is the big question. Will the people I follow on Instagram start accounts? And will they post content that I’m interested in? What will the demographics of the user base be? So many question about what this audience might look like.
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How will the ActivityPub implementation work? As a devoted Micro.Blog user, I’m interested in the rumored ActivityPub integration. Will I be able to follow Threads users on Micro.Blog? Can I cross post from Micro.Blog? As the first mainstream ActivityPub implementation,...
My son lost his AirPods a few weeks ago. (These were my first generation AirPods that I replaced when I got AirPods Pro.) Today he found them in their case in a neighbor’s yard. These AirPods have been sitting exposed to extreme heat and rain for 2+ weeks, and guess what? Somehow, they still work.