Meta, the parent company of social media giant Facebook, is reportedly working on its own decentralized text-based social network. According to recent reports, the network is already in development under several codenames such as P92, Project 92, and Barcelona. The new network will be integrated with Instagram, and users will be able to log in to the network using their Instagram handle, according to Moneycontrol, which first reported about the project in March.
The project will be spearheaded by Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s top executive, and the “Sharing product group” that supports reels and creator-focused tools. Per a recent report by The Information, this group will also support P92. Meta has already introduced more text-based features to the Instagram ecosystem in the last several months. In December, Instagram launched “Notes,” which lets users share short statuses in DMs. And in February, Instagram introduced “Broadcast Channels” where select users can send one-way DMs to followers.
In a recent prototype shared by Alessandro Paluzzi, an Italian mobile developer who reverse engineers Instagram code to reveal internal tests, it appears that Meta is using the tagline “Instagram for your thoughts” while it continues to develop P92. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates,” a spokesperson for Meta told Insider in a statement when asked about the prototype. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
Meta’s new network will, in theory, compete with Twitter as well as the barrage of Twitter replacements that have emerged on the market such as Mastodon and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky. However, the biggest challenge for this new product will be to try to offset some of the weaknesses that occurred with Twitter, which was the fact that engagement time was so limited. While P92 is reported to be a decentralized network, utilizing decentralized protocols like ActivityPub (the same as Mastodon), Meta has already dabbled in Web3 technology with its NFTs on Instagram and Facebook. Those initiatives didn’t last long — within a year of testing digital collectibles, Meta abandoned the efforts. Meta’s decentralized social network could very well face the same fate.
Despite these challenges, Meta could be in a good position to take on this space, said Daniel Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust. “It’s not hard for them to market something like this,” Morgan told Insider, pointing to Meta’s billions of users. “It’s a better idea than a lot of other things that have come out of Meta recently,” Morgan added. “It’s a great opportunity for them to fill that void with Twitter going through such a transition.”
Following Meta’s upbeat first-quarter earnings call on April 26, Morgan said that he sees a “fresh start” for Meta on the horizon — and P92 “is part of this new chapter.” “This could be another leg to the Meta story in terms of monetizing subscribers,” Morgan said. “They’re trying to monetize reels, that’s their next big leg. This new product — Barcelona, whatever you want to call it — there’s definitely an appetite for it.”
In conclusion, Meta’s new decentralized text-based social network integrated with Instagram is a promising opportunity for the company to expand its reach and fill the void created by Twitter’s recent transition. However, the success of this product will depend on whether it can overcome the engagement limitations of Twitter and sustain its decentralized protocols. Nonetheless, with billions of users at its disposal, Meta has the potential to create another success story with P92.
