On May 19, Bloomberg reported that Instagram is planning to release a text-based app to compete with Twitter.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is currently testing the idea of the project only with a limited number of celebrities and influencers. According to people familiar with the matter, Instagram has been in discussions with selected creators for several months. However, according to one of them, none of the creators have access to the full version of the app at this time.
Lia Haberman, who teaches social and influencer marketing at UCLA, released a screenshot of an early app description on her Twitter page today.
Meta’s been briefing creators on it’s upcoming text-based app — now looking at a possible late June launch.
Details are in my newsletter but I’ll list some highlights 🧵 pic.twitter.com/KYqqXjrRmD
— Lia Haberman (@liahaberman) May 19, 2023
According to Haberman, the app being developed is separate from Instagram but will allow accounts to be interconnected. She also said the app could be released as early as June of this year. In addition, it may eventually be compatible with other Twitter-competing apps, including Mastodon, according to screenshots released by Haberman. Mastodon is a social media service launched in 2016 by Eugen Rochko of Germany. Known as “decentralized social media,” it has garnered attention as “the next social media alternative to Twitter.”
Meta has been thoroughly competing with other apps in the past by bringing features that have become popular on other apps, such as Snapchat and Tiktok, to Instagram. In the U.S., the number of Twitter users has plummeted since the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk and various rule changes to the platform, so this may be the perfect time for Meta’s new texting app to capture the previous Twitter audience.