There are a few things in life that we can depend on consistently. Maggie Nelson’s writing will always move us, my mother’s pancake recipe will always slap us, and Meta will always attempt to acquire users from other platforms by transforming its own.
Just weeks after Elon Musk “let that sink in” at the Twitter headquarters, social media consultant and industry analyst Matt Navarra tweeted about Meta’s staff discussing building a new Twitter competitor with a “notes” feature on Instagram, building a text-focused app, or adding Twitter-like feeds to Instagram. It will be referred to as Realtime, Real Reels, or Instant, which are all acceptable names except that they all sound the same.
“Twitter is in crisis and Meta needs its mojo back,” a Meta employee wrote in a New York Times-reported post. “LET’S GO FOR THEIR BREAD AND BUTTER.”
While the situation at Twitter is incredibly chaotic, Meta has had its own problems. It was unable to stop the spread of false information that shook the foundations of democracies around the world, and it was unable to stop the Kardashians from bringing about terrible changes. However, users have ignored these flags for years.
Meta has always attempted to be everything to everyone. Instagram has recently begun to resemble TikTok but in a negative way. It switched to video, upped the number of posts it recommends, added “Add Yours” stickers and remixing to Reels for Instagram and Facebook, and gave Reels, its short-form video feature that is meant to take over the app, more attention. Before TikTok was a threat, Instagram launched Instagram Stories to capitalize on Snapchat’s success. Now that TikTok is gone, rumors are going around that it may also use some of the features from BeReal.
As has been said before, the platform is trying to become a super app with shopping, online stores, sharing links, ordering cars, messaging with friends, and more.
