Instagram launches Threads, a messenger for close friends (and to compete with Snapchat)

Was there a need for a new visual messaging app? Yes, it answers Facebook. On Thursday, the company launched Threads, an app designed by the Instagram team, which wants to facilitate the sharing of photos and videos with his close friends. And who copies a little more Snapchat, after ephemeral messages and stories.

Snapchat has refocused on close friends, and Mark Zuckerberg said in a 10-page manifesto last March that the future was to small-group interactions and more to the public display of his private life.

We connect to Threads with his Instagram profile. Then one chooses in the long list of his contacts those who will have the honor to take leave of his close friends. And among these, the faithful of the faithful are entitled to a shortcut. Simpler than Snapchat to use, the app allows ultra-fast sharing of photos and videos: the camera is activated automatically, and just click on the bubble of one of his favorites to take a picture and send it to this person, all in one gesture.

Warning, the danger with automatic status sharing

The other major function of Threads is to be able to share a status ("at home", "at work", "eating / watching TV", "dying of boredom" etc.) as in the great era of ICQ or MSN (pay your shot of old), but here via emojis.

It is also possible to choose an automatic status sharing. Translation, we must accept to be constantly spying on Facebook and give him access to different data (geolocation, accelerometer). Given the liabilities of the company, it is better to think twice.