The world would have known Meta"s latest social media app Threads by a different name if things didn"t turn out like they did. Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who has been quite vocal on the platform since its day one, revealed that the team"s second-best choice for the app"s name was Epigram.
He added that the text-based social media app was originally referred to as Textagram, although that name was never meant to see the daylight.
Threads is a spin-off of Instagram that Meta built as an alternative to Twitter (now X). While the intended mode of interaction on the social media platform is text, it also supports media types such as photos, videos, and audio recordings.
Many users who came to the comments section said Threads is the best out of the three names. Some even trolled Epigram, saying it sounds like a medical term. Threads was developed by the Instagram team, and you can even use your Instagram account to set up a Threads profile.
However, some users suggested the Threads name gives it a discreet identity as opposed to something ending with "gram." "Threads keeps it separated more from Instagram, which I like. Because regardless of the insistence of the Threads team, I don"t consider Threads a fork of Instagram," a user commented.
While the two platforms have things in common, Meta is trying to add some differences. For instance, Threads doesn"t support hashtags like Instagram, and you can only add one tag per post. The X rival also lacks support for direct messaging, and there are no plans for it in the foreseeable future.
Naming a product or service can be tricky; developers often have to narrow down a choice of names. For instance, Google"s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin initially landed on the name Backrub for their search engine.
Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger"s image-sharing app Instagram started as a check-in app called Burbn. Similarly, the e-commerce behemoth Amazon, which started as Cadabra, could have been named Relentless.com, according to Brad Stone"s book The Everything Store. Even today, when you visit the URL, it still redirects you to Amazon.com.