Will Wright, creator of SimCity and The Sims, has launched a new storytelling app for iOS. The app, Thred, is designed to help people express themselves by connecting people with other people, places and web content.
From step-by-step how-to's to web comics, Thred promises to help users translate their ideas into visual stories that can be shared with friends in app and on social media.
"One of the fundamental ideas behind Thred is a better way to create and consume content for mobile," said Wright, creator and CEO of the company behind the eponymous app. "We provide quick and easy access to the sea of personal and global data we swim through every day as building blocks for the creative process."
It may seem to some to have appeared out of left field, but Wright shares this is something he has been passionate about for years now.
"Thred is a direct evolution of my interests in crowdsourcing, online communities and tools that amplify the imagination," said Wright. "In recent years, I've been drawn more and more to new entertainment forms—ones that lead the user to become more engaged with the world around them, rather than withdrawn from it."
Thred users can add captions to their visual stories and turn them into memes. The app comes with several standard filters, although it includes several that can cartoonify images so that users can create web comics. Thred also includes a library of stickers to help users spice up their "threds" even more.
Along with content creation, Thred is served with a standard complement of social features. The app supports hyperlinking through the Storyweb: hashtagging, mentioning and geo tagging.
Despite all of its features, simplicity is meant to be one of the primary elements of Thred, according to Wright. Users should be able to browse threads with one hand on their mobile device and the other on a cup of coffee.
"In some senses, it's very much like comic language," Wright said. "But we think we have built something that has the power of the World Wide Web. It has a lot of the same features, but it is far easier to create [with] and far easier to bring your whole life into it and share it and more natural to consume on a mobile device."
Thred is currently available on the web and iOS. There's no word when an Android version will arrive.
