Messaging Monday

by: Veit Irtenkauf

Meta is working on a Twitter competitor. Should you care?

March 20, 2023

In a recent statement, Meta confirmed they are working on project "P92", a competitor to Twitter. They plan to use ActivityPub, the decentralized service powering Mastodon and other federated services. It would become part of Instagram, thus adding a Twitter-like social network component to Instagram.

This project makes a lot of sense. Twitter is vulnerable. The creators that left and went to Mastodon have to deal with two major issues: Consumers don't know Mastodon and thus creating an account is a huge hurdle that is slowing down Mastodon's adoption. An Instagram-based service would solve both issues immediately. And that would create a big headache for Twitter.

In a previous post, I recommended that brands start to explore a presence on Mastodon. I'm doubling down on this recommendation. Given what we know today, I'd expect a launch of Meta's "P92" would accelerate the exodus of brands and advertising dollars from Twitter. Brands need to be ready for that.

Source: Moneycontrol.com.