By now you may have heard that Meta is about to launch Threads, its Instagram-based Twitter competitor, right as Twitter is suffering from major technical issues that has caused it to rate limit tweet views, making the site about as broken as it’s ever been under Elon Musk.
Unlike Bluesky, which has extremely limited invites and actually had to stop sign-ups after a flood of new ones post-Twitter meltdown, Threads isn’t going to work like that, as it has the backing of Meta behind it. Not that anyone is cheerleading for Meta, certainly, another megacorp and purveyor of Many Bad Tech Things, but this is almost certainly going to be the most viable Twitter competitor on the market almost instantly, plus you can carry some amount of followership over from Instagram.
Threads launches on Thursday, July 6, but you can start finding your “invite ticket” now, along with the exact time it’s going to launch in your region. You can pre-“get” Threads in the iOS app store right now, but to find the things on Instagram is a bit tricky.
First, you can either put “threads” in the search box on Instagram or also “p92” for reasons I can’t quite explain. Once it’s in the search box, a little red ticket that says “admit one” will appear in the box. You can click on that and see the invite.
While I know this is working for some people, this…actually locked up my app whenever I tried it. So there’s a much easier second solution. Instagram has also put Threads in the menu when you click on your profile and then the three lines. It’s near the top, and that should give you your “ticket” as well. I’m not positive everyone’s launch time is the same, but mine says 10 AM ET. (Some people are reporting none of this is showing up yet, and it’s unclear what additional stipulations there might be.)
There is a QR code that will take you to the app store to get the app. It will also show your profile name, as you get to keep your existing Instagram name for Threads (it’s not clear if you can change it). It’s also not clear if you will even need a specific invite when this launches, but if so, I’m guessing you may have to input that number linked to your name.
Again, while no one is wild about supporting Meta, Twitter under Musk is become borderline unusable and only a touch better if you sign up for the paid Twitter Blue. If there ever was a moment for a competitor to emerge, it’s here with Threads. I cannot see any of the others truly taking off or ever becoming more than a niche. That may happen with Threads as well, but you probably want to at least try it out if you’re missing non-broken Twitter.
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