EwtNet

Tag: instagram

  • Threads: Meta Unveils It’s Joining The Fray With Twitter

    Threads: Meta Unveils It’s Joining The Fray With Twitter

    Meta, the parent company of Instagram, the same organization that owns Facebook, is gearing up to launch its new app called Threads, which is set to rival Twitter. The app, available for pre-order on the Apple App Store, will be linked to Instagram. Ahead of its official launch, Threads seeks to provide a space for text-based conversations and community discussions. Threads will allow users to follow and connect with their favorite creators and engage with others who share similar interests. The app’s interface resembles Twitter, offering features such as reposting, liking, and the ability to control who can reply to posts.

    Screenshots of Threads reveal a dashboard that bears a striking resemblance to Twitter, intensifying the rivalry between Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter’s owner Elon Musk. Meta’s entry into the market comes at a time when users are seeking alternatives to Twitter. Particularly after Elon Musk took over the platform and implemented significant changes that made it more challenging to access.

    Instagram Threads, Bluesky, Truth Social, and Other Competitors

    In one of their ongoing battles, Zuckerberg and Musk even agreed to a physical fight recently. Although the seriousness of their intentions remains uncertain. Musk took another swipe at Zuckerberg, sarcastically praising the sanity of Twitter in response to a tweet about the Instagram Threads. This exchange comes as Twitter announced that its popular user dashboard, TweetDeck, will be placed behind a paywall in 30 days. As part of Musk’s efforts to promote Twitter Blue, the platform’s subscription service. Musk has also limited the number of tweets users can see, citing data scraping concerns.

    Meta’s Threads, on the other hand, is expected to offer free access with no restrictions on post visibility. Meta is joining other platforms like BlueSky and Mastodon in the competition to replace Twitter. While Musk has received praise for his commitment to free speech, he has also alienated some users. Zuckerberg hopes to attract dissatisfied Twitter users and create a genuine alternative. In recent years, apps like Donald Trump’s Truth Social and Mastodon have emerged as Twitter-like platforms. Bluesky and Mastodon experienced increased traffic following Musk’s tweet restrictions. However, Threads has the potential to be the most formidable competitor Twitter has faced thus far.

    Meta executives revealed during a company meeting that Instagram Threads would integrate with ActivityPub. The decentralized social media protocol used by Mastodon. This announcement sparked speculation about a potential showdown between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. An in-house executive expressed the desire for a platform that is sanely run.

    The launch of Instagram Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, is expected on July 6th. According to listings on the App Store and Google Play Store.

  • Selena Gomez and 6 million other Instagram Accounts Hacked

    Selena Gomez and 6 million other Instagram Accounts Hacked

    A group of hackers used a bug earlier this week to scrape the phone numbers and email addresses of six million Instagram accounts and are now selling that information on the web.

    The hackers mainly targeted celebrities and verified users, including Selena Gomez, who’s account was hacked two days ago. The hackers used this glitch in Instagram’s system to start posting nude pictures of the singer and actor’s ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber to her 125 million followers.

    In a list sent to the Daily Beast, the hackers included 1,000 names of several well-known figures including celebrities, sports stars, and media personalities.

    The hackers also scraped the information of unverified users and are now reportedly selling this giant trove of data for $10 an inquiry via bitcoin.

    Instagram admitted the security bug in a letter today, though it downplayed how many users had been affected.

    “Although we cannot determine which specific accounts may have been impacted, we believe it was a low percentage of Instagram accounts,” wrote Instagram CTO Mike Krieger.

    Instagram services more than 700 million accounts; six million is not a small number, especially if it contains the phone numbers and emails of the most popular Instagrammers.

    However, Doxagram, the site selling the information via the hackers, appears to be down. It’s unclear if this was an effort by Instagram to shut the site down.

    Regardless of whether the site selling the information is gone for good, the hackers still have direct contact information for several high-profile accounts and may still be selling in some other way. Others also may have already bought from them and now that information is floating out there on the web.

    Instagram says it has since fixed the issue and that it is working with law enforcement. However, the bug exposes certain vulnerabilities within Instagram’s system and the popular platform will likely need to take further measures to button up on security for celebrities and everyone else with an account.

    “Protecting the community has been important at Instagram from day one, and we’re constantly working to make Instagram a safer place. We are very sorry this happened,” Krieger wrote.

  • Instagram now bigger than Twitter with 300 Million Users

    Instagram now bigger than Twitter with 300 Million Users

    Instagram has reached over 300 million active users, a tremendous milestone for the company. Across the abundance of users, there are roughly about 70 million photos shared each day, accompanied by 2.5 billion “likes.”

    Since March, the active user count for Instagram has grown over 100 million. Quite fast and quite good indeed. This also makes Instagram now more popular than Twitter; only amassing to 284 million active users a month, it’s market cap being around $23 million. Why this detail? Because Instagram was acquired by Facebook back in April 2012 for only $1 billion.

    More than 70% of Instagram’s users are outside of the U.S., and across the network the users have shared over 30 billion photos.

    “We’re seeing a lot of people coming in the fashion world, a lot of people coming in, in the youthful teens world, and a lot of people internationally as well,” 

    CEO Kevin Systrom said in an interview with CNBC. Can Instagram keep up with this change of pace? “That’s the big challenge for me and my team going forward,” he said. One way Mr. Systrom aims to do so is to make it easier than ever for people to find new content they would love and more and more people to follow to keep updated with said-content. “There are photos pouring in from everywhere in the world. If you’re interested in really eclectic topics, I guarantee you there are accounts that are related to that. So we need to make sure to connect you with the content that matters most to you.“

    There is more to the announcements by Instagram than just the 300 million user marker. To help combat spam on their app, they are rolling out a verification badge to be displayed on the profiles of celebrities, athletes, brands and other user types, to help ensure the majority of users know they’re connecting with the real person behind the account. Instagram also said it was planning to remove all “spammy” accounts from the service to improve the app for everyone.

    The removal of spam is required whilst Instagram ramps up in popularity and usage. Mr. Systrom said that Instagram doesn’t aim to compete with tech companies in their advertising platform (which is another major reason for the removal of the spam), but to compete against print and television ads – something you don’t really hear in the comparison of online ad competitors.

    “We are selling brand advertising that shifts perceptions, for instance like Chobani,” said Systrom.

    “Chobani did a really wonderful yogurt campaign on Instagram to shift perceptions away from the fact that they were just yogurt. And they had a 7 point incremental lift on shifting that perception through a brand advertisement on Instagram. That’s the type of thing you typically see in a magazine or on TV. If you look at those markets, they are very, very large. And I think that’s what we’re going after. So you can see where we’re headed.“

    Though Instagram has outnumbered Twitter in active users, they still have a long while to catch up to the company in revenue terms; which was $365 million in the last quarter. “I think it’s hard to compare Twitter and Instagram,” he said. “Twitter has a more mature business. They’re public. We’ve just started monetizing. We have a lot to prove before we’re, you know, worth many billions of dollars,“

    When asked if he felt like he wasted billions on the Facebook acquisition, Kevin Systrom denied, saying he doesn’t think of it that way, and that he has Facebook to thank for the intense growth of the company.

    sources:
    CNBC
    Google News
    blog.theadvocate.com (image)

    What do you think of the good news Instagram has released? Leave a comment below.