Abstract (eng)
In the digital age, social media applications have reached unprecedented levels of popularity. The following thesis investigates user satisfaction of Threads, a new social media application, intro-duced by Meta’s Instagram team, for sharing text updates, and joining public conversations. The study aims to contribute to the literature on social media user satisfaction, while continuing the discussion on hedonic and utilitarian philosophies. The thesis is guided by the three proposed research questions. Firstly, a comparative analysis with its main competitor, X, revealed the main similarities and distinctions between the two applications, from the user perspective. The applica-tions serve the same need of sharing text updates, and the main differences lie for example in the: account registration, as Threads is integrated with Instagram; pricing, with Threads (Meta) having slightly more expensive premium accounts; content limits, with Threads allowing in gen-eral for sharing more content in the free version, and X more in the premium version; as well as in the number of functionalities, with Threads having less possibilities at this moment. Secondly, a sentiment analysis of user reviews, using TextBlob and VADER libraries in Python, confirmed a predominantly positive attitude towards Threads (51-55%). Thirdly, two topic modelling tech-niques, LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis) and LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), were used to identify the main themes discussed by the users. In the negative reviews, the users: (1) say Threads is a copy of Twitter; (2) are not content about the Instagram integration; (3) express data privacy concerns; (4) are dissatisfied with their feed content; (5) and describe the encountered technical issues. In the positive reviews, the users: (1) like the application and appreciate its cur-rent features, but express interest in seeing more functionalities in the future; (2) say the platform is easy to use; (3) prefer it over X; (4) and express a general excitement, using positive words such as ‘best’, ‘great’, ‘love’, and ‘amazing’. Overall, users enjoy the application. Threads caters to both hedonic and utilitarian values, potentially influencing users' intentions to continue the usage. The analysis suggests that Threads can be viewed as an alternative to X, as also directly commented by the users.