In a secret meeting with some of its creators, Instagram parent company Meta revealed it plans to launch a text-based conversation app, according to reports. Leaked screenshots of the allegedly upcoming app show a Twitter-like user interface.
Instagram's plan to compete with Twitter was discovered by Lia Haberman, an influencer marketing and social media marketing teacher at UCLA. According to Haberman, while the text-based application is built on top of Instagram, it is decentralized and will operate as a separate application . The app will also be compatible with other decentralized social media apps like Mastodon, enabling users to reach a wider audience.
The upcoming app will maintain a centralized Twitter-like feed, allowing users to view content such as text, images and videos shared by followers and recommended accounts. Each text-based post will be limited to 500 characters. While the Twitter-rival app will run independently of Instagram, creator controls and account security features, such as blocked accounts and keywords, will move over to the new app. Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier reported confirmed the development of Instagram's Twitter-like app from an insider. Meta first confirmed pl ans to develop an independent decentralized social network in March, when it said: “We are exploring an independent decentralized social network to share text updates. We believe there is an opportunity to build a single space, Creators and public figures can share their interests in real time here."
In an effort to further decentralize the internet, TBD, a division of Jack Dorsey's fintech firm Block has announced a “Web5” decentralized web platform that aims to introduce “decentralized identity and data storage” to applications. ". To facilitate this decentralized web experience , TBD's Web5 platform will introduce several key components and use decentralized identifiers.
