Early final month, reports began to pop up that Meta was eying the chaos taking place on Elon Musk’s Twitter and noticed a possibility to doubtlessly create its personal Meta substitute – and hopefully scoop up any Twitter outcasts in search of a brand new, much less unstable house.
In a chat with Platformer in early March, Meta confirmed that it’s “exploring a standalone decentralized social community for sharing textual content updates. We imagine there’s a possibility for a separate house the place creators and public figures can share well timed updates about their pursuits.”
It is no shock that it is Twitter we’re speaking about right here.
The undertaking was initially codenamed ‘P92’ and appears to be moving ahead below a brand new title. Meta’s ‘Barcelona’ is slowly within the works as a text-based social media app.
We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social community for sharing textual content updates
Meta by way of Platformer
App researcher Allesandro Paluzzi took to Twitter to share photographs of Barcelona, and stated the app is being pitched as ‘Instagram on your ideas’, which, once more… is simply Twitter.
Clearly, all the things continues to be within the preliminary levels, however the idea appears fairly primary: text-based posts that goal to concentrate on posting and personal messaging in an expanded format. Lots of people (myself included) talk solely by means of Instagram DMs, so it will make sense for Meta to take this chance to broaden that facet of the app.
#Instagram is engaged on a brand new app known as “Barcelona” 👀I ponder if it’s the codename for his or her new text-based social community to compete with #Twitter pic.twitter.com/q8LJTc1JG7March 28, 2023
Barcelona will permit customers to comply with one another and keep on prime of their textual content updates. Social Media Today has put collectively a helpful record of all of the issues we all know concerning the app to this point, and it sounds extremely Twitter-esque. The brand new app will use your Instagram credentials to log in and use your present Instagram ID as your username within the app.
The utmost size of Barcelona posts will probably be about 500 characters, and with the continual turmoil occurring with Twitter because it stands proper now, Meta is probably going prioritizing the undertaking.
Free me
As I stated, I exploit Instagram to speak with most if not all of my mates, and having a devoted house to put up ‘textual content updates’ born proper out of the app we’ve all navigated and recognized for customers is an excellent thought. There isn’t any new format to study, no intensive setup, nor an unfamiliar person interface. It’ll simply be an extension, and I believe that may drive customers to the app.
The present title of the app is slightly odd, and I’m undecided what individuals would name the Barcelona equal of Tweets (Barcys? B’s? Lonas?) however I believe younger individuals particularly would flock to the brand new app. Twitter has turn into a turbulent place to be, full of promoted tweets and that rubbish ‘For You’ part, and a number of younger individuals will certainly recognize solely being linked to the individuals they already know and comply with.
I embrace any and all options to the hen app, because it feels virtually like I’m trapped. Loads of my work stuff is on there, together with corporations and celebrities I comply with, so I really feel like I can’t actually go away. However with the potential for Barcelona, I really feel like I can escape that hell website and really get pleasure from scrolling by means of my feed.
