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Tens of millions of people have quickly signed up to Meta’s new app, Threads, as it aims to compete with Twitter — a sign that users are looking for an alternative to the social media platform that has undergone a series of unpopular changes since Elon Musk bought it.

Meta Platforms’ CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that 30 million people had registered for the app, including 10 million in the first seven hours of its launch Wednesday in the U.S. and over 100 other countries, including Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan.

Threads is billed as a text-based version of Meta’s photo-sharing app Instagram that the company says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.”

Instagram users can log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts on the new app, giving Threads users a ready-made audience and an edge over other Twitter challengers like Bluesky and Mastodon.

“I think I’ll just see — I’ll keep Twitter for a while and then if everyone moves over there (to Threads), then I’ll probably move,” said Javi de Andreas, a 24-year-old researcher in London.

He added that Instagram “feels like a bit more reliable just in terms of nothing really changes.”

There was plenty of excitement among Threads users about the opportunity to make a fresh start on a new social media app, giving Threads a “first day of school” vibe.

Early adopters included celebrities like chef Gordon Ramsay, pop star Shakira and actor Jack Black as well as Airbnb, Guinness World Records, Netflix, Vogue magazine and other media outlets.

There were also glitches, annoyance about the lack of a chronological feed and gripes about missing features — raising the question of whether the initial burst of interest would lead to sustained growth that could pose a meaningful challenge to Twitter.

“The euphoria around a new service and this initial explosion will probably settle down,” said Paolo Pescatore, a technology analyst at PP Foresight. “But it is apparent that this alternative is here to stay and will prove to be a worthy rival given all of Twitter’s woes.”

Teething problems for Threads include Zuckerberg’s posts — or Threads as they’re dubbed — not loading in several countries. But his replies to other users did appear.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri acknowledged the early issues.

“The real test is not if we can build up a lot of hype, but if you all find enough value in the app to keep using it ove time,” Mosseri posted in a thread.

“And there are tons of basics that are missing: search, hashtags, a following feed” and direct messaging, he said. “We’re on it,” but ”it’ll take time.”

Threads does have buttons to like, repost, reply to or quote a thread, and users see the number of likes and replies a post has received. Posts are limited to 500 characters, which is more than Twitter’s 280-character threshold for most users, and can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long.

Some questioned whether it made sense to seek to combine Twitter and Instagram users, which are two distinct online groups. Twitter is tailored for quick and short updates, while Instagram is best for visually creative posts.

“Some people will want to keep it separate from Instagram for numerous and very good reasons,” Pescatore said. “This is something that Meta might have to address, which could halt its progress.”

Meta’s new offering also has raised data privacy concerns. The company has held off on rolling it out in the European Union, citing regulatory uncertainty.

The 27-nation EU has strict data privacy rules and is set to start enforcing a new set of digital rules aimed at clamping down on Big Tech companies and limiting what they can do with users’ personal information.

Threads could collect a wide range of personal information, including health, financial, contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info,” according to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store.

Threads poses a fresh headache for Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion. Analysts said combining Twitter-style features with Instagram’s look and feel would drive user engagement.

Musk has made a series of changes that have triggered backlash, the latest being daily limits on the number of tweets people can view to try to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.

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Last weekend, Crown Royal Golden Apple sponsored Missy Elliott’s 52nd birthday during Essence Fest.

Guests arrived to an immersive futuristic playground complete with an LED lit tunnel playing the Grammy Award winners vibrant and iconic music videos over the span of her career. The carefully curated ambiance reflected the hip hop artist’s unique style, favorite color (purple), and larger than life-size images from her recent Essence Magazine Cover shoot.

Kaitlyn Morris photos

Celebs such as Jermaine Dupri, Brian Michael Cox, Jill Scott, Ari Lennox, Letoya Luckett, Danielle Brooks, Charlie Mack, Roland Martin, Deon Cole, Sean Bankhead, Rosci Diaz, Tyler Leplay, Brandee Evans, Nicco Annan, Yandy Smith, Mona Scott-Young and Missy Elliott herself filled the star-studded occasion.

Throughout the night, guests were treated to gourmet hors d’oeuvres complemented with Missy inspired signature cocktails by Crown Royal’s newly launched limited-edition Golden Apple Aged 23 Years.

The post Inside Missy Elliott’s 52nd birthday bash appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A legal dispute that caused the cancellation of a local bookstore’s event spotlighting Black authors during the Essence Music Festival of Culture held in New Orleans has been resolved.

Lawyers for the Essence Festival issued a cease-and-desist letter June 29 to Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned coffee and bookstore business, and the mini-event organizers, Lit Diaries LLC, saying they used its trademark to mislead customers during the festival held over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Baldwin & Co. was dropped from the lawsuit on Sunday. On Tuesday, Essence announced it had reached a resolution with Lit Diaries, news outlets reported.

Essence organizers, in a statement, said they dismissed the suit against Baldwin & Co. because of the bookstore’s “apology and swift action in this matter.” It added, however, that Essence “… is dedicated to protecting festival attendees, the public and our consumers and will take all necessary action to ensure the integrity of the Essence Festival of Culture.”

On Tuesday, Essence and Lit Diaries issued a joint statement about the situation but did not provide specific details.

“We recognize that mistakes were made on both sides and are actively collaborating with the parties involved to rectify the situation at hand,” the statement read. “We have worked diligently to untangle the multiple issues that have played out the past few days. After engaging in a deeper conversation with Essence, Lit Diaries has gained a clearer understanding of the factors that led them to pursue a Temporary Restraining Order. Through this dialogue, we have come to appreciate the complexities and considerations involved in our decision-making processes.

“Upon reflection and discussion, it is clear that Essence’s actions were not aimed at shutting down the Lit Diaries event. Instead, Essence sought to protect consumers from any misleading promotion of the event and to maintain their intellectual property rights and brand integrity. Lit Diaries understands Essence’s commitment to safeguarding its assets, not only for itself but the community at large.”

With the suit behind it, Baldwin & Co. owner D.J. Johnson is looking forward to working with city leaders to prevent a similar situation from happening again and has already had conversations with local council members, attorney Katie Schwartzmann told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate

At the center of the dispute is the city’s “Clean Zone” ordinance which banned events and vendors from certain areas around festival events unless permitted through the city. The ordinance, which began June 26, expired Monday. The law also prohibited other outdoor events and festivals in the area during that time period.

City Council member Freddie King, who sponsored the ordinance creating a clean zone for this year’s festival, said that the measure was never intended to harm local businesses and that council members will revisit the issue for the future, the newspaper reported.

“Definitely as a council we will look at how this affects local vendors,” King said. “But clean zones are nothing new for a city that has large events and festivals.”

Schwartzmann, who is also director of the First Amendment Law Clinic at Tulane Law School, questioned the size of the Essence clean zone, which included the Central Business District, Warehouse District, French Quarter and parts of three neighborhoods, including Treme.

“The restriction on commercial activity of our residents in such a large zone is simply unjustified,” she said.

She said the ordinance is also problematic because it outlaws constitutionally protected speech by prohibiting the distribution of merchandise and advertisement not approved by Essence.

The Baldwin & Co. lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar one Essence filed against Spotify and local real estate developer Sean Cummings over an event that the music streaming service held during the 2022 Essence Festival at a club Cummings owns. That suit, which also names Cummings’ International House hotel, claims Spotify held an “unauthorized” event at Cumming’s Kingsway Studio “within the boundaries and time frame prohibited by the clean zone ordinance.”

Cummings has said he will ask the court to dismiss the claims.

Other cities also have seen challenges to clean zone laws which have become a standard part of incentive packages cities offer to entice the NCAA or NFL when bidding for events like the Final Four or Super Bowl, industry experts have said.

Early this year, a business owner in downtown Phoenix challenged a clean zone law there that was established in advance of Super Bowl LVII. The Arizona Superior Court struck down the law as unconstitutional.

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