Back in March, we wrote about how Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had hinted it had a rival platform to Twitter in the works. Now, it appears that this rival is close to fruition, with news recently revealed that Meta plans to release its new offering as early as next month.
This new app, which is a said to be a decentralised social platform, has been dubbed with the codenames Barcelona, P92 and Project 92. It is said to be built for public figures and creators, with the tagline “Instagram for your thoughts”.
Meta has been conducting secret calls with a select group of creators, and Lia Haberman of ICYMI by Lia Haberman spoke to such a creator, who revealed insights into the new platform.
According to Haberman’s source, the new app is being built on the back of Instagram, but will be decentralised and compatible with some alternative platforms, such as Mastodon. Users will login with their existing Instagram credentials, and their username, bio, followers and verification (if they have it) will all also be applied to the new P92 platform. Any blocked accounts or hidden words a user has in place on Instagram will too be carried over, along with Instagram’s community guidelines.
So, what is it?
It is, quite simply put, a rival to Twitter, with the premise for the platform extremely similar. Users will be able to post short text updates up to 500 characters in length, attaching photos, links or videos five minutes or under if they wish. They will also be able to engage with others via replies, reposts and likes – just like on Twitter.
Meta provided a sneak peek at what the new platform will look like to the creators it has been talking to:
Interestingly, according to sources, there are no plans for Meta to monetise the platform as of yet. With Musk’s changes to Twitter seeing increased in-platform ads for non-paying users, but even paying users not truly seeing a reduction in ads, this could be a clever way to entice users to make the switch upon P92’s launch.
It is said that Meta has hinted at this new platform being available as early as June, so it’s well worth keeping an eye on. With any new platform launch, it can be hard to determine whether it will take off, but coming from a social media giant like Meta, and with an increasing number of users becoming disillusioned with Twitter, this new platform may be coming at just the right time.
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