A picture is worth a thousand words
From the creator and designer of The Sims and Sim City comes Thred, an app that allows you to create customized scrapbooks of your life in photos, and then share these with friends or via the in-app social network.
Virtually scrapbook your life
Thred harnesses several powerful aspects that are right on trend today: photo sharing, creating fun and silly versions of these photos, and social networking. The app is in part a way to document and share your life in a photo format, and in part a way to get tap into your creative side by editing, enhancing, and adding some fun and personality to your images.
The idea is to make a virtual book, consisting of up to 30 slides (ie customized photos). It’s a simple concept: upload your own photos or search for some within the app using a keyword, then add some captions, text, stickers, and filters. Friends or people you follow can also be tagged, and you can add locations or link to other people’s threds from within your scrapbook. Once you’re done you can either share via social media or save in the app where your followers will be able to see what you’ve been up to.
This brings me to the next aspect: the social network. It seems any app worth its salt these days tries to incorporate a social element. Thred’s relies on the usual like and comment on features, while adding in bookmark functionality, which allows you to save a thred for later and link to it from within one of your own threds. This feature has a touch of Flipboard about it, but instead of “flipping”, you “bookmark” (maybe you should be “thredding”).
Quirky fun
Thred is reminiscent of apps such as Instagram in its feature set, and slick look and feel. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into making it look attractive and to work without any hitches, but it’s difficult to navigate at times. I got lost trying to work out which option was which. Taking the time to play around with Thred will help, but it does beg the question as to whether it tries to do too much at once.
That said, having a quick browse of the other threds on the in-app social network, there are some fantastically creative threds, so users are obviously getting the hang of it. The pictures tend to be more quirky/funny than beautiful, although the mix up of text and captions with photos has given rise to some more meaningful threds. The app creator says it’s all about creating stories through images, which is easy to see in the concept, even if it hasn’t quite resonated with users yet.
Sharing every moment of life
Thred is an app that is right on trend, centered around our inane need to document every moment of our existence in photo form, and make these photos the funnier the better. But – and this is a point that could be leveled at so many apps these days – its success will very much depend on whether it gets some buzz and can get a loyal user fan base.
Overall, Thred is fun to use, social, looks great, and has the potential to spark interesting conversations.
