Threads (app), launched by Meta, gained over 30 million sign-ups in just 18 hours after its release. This rapid success has positioned Threads as a formidable competitor to Twitter, owned by Elon Musk.
Leveraging its access to billions of Instagram users and featuring a similar interface to Twitter, Threads has been dubbed the “Twitter-Killer.” The app quickly climbed to the top of Apple’s App Store charts in the UK and the US.
The launch of Threads follows a period of ongoing rivalry and exchange of taunts between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Elon Musk. The two tech giants even went as far as threatening to engage in a mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas.
Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg praised Threads as a well-executed platform with a user-friendly interface, typical of Meta’s approach. In response to Threads’ popularity, Twitter threatened to sue Meta. However, Twitter has not officially commented on this, and Reuters has not verified the reported threat.
Meta has emphasized that no former Twitter employees are part of the Threads engineering team. Over the past year, several competitors have emerged in response to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion.
Musk’s decisions since the acquisition have created turmoil among users and advertisers, making room for well-funded competitors like Meta Platforms. Meta’s access to Instagram’s vast user base and strong advertising capabilities give Threads a significant advantage in challenging Twitter’s dominance.
Niklas Myhr, a marketing professor at Chapman University, believes that Threads’ release coincides with the perfect opportunity to disrupt Twitter. With its foundation on the Instagram platform, Threads benefits from a massive existing user base. If users embrace Threads, advertisers are likely to follow suit.
Although other Twitter-like apps have emerged as competitors, their success has been limited. Mastodon, for example, boasts 1.7 million monthly active users, while Bluesky, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has around 265,000 users. In comparison, Twitter reported 229 million monthly active users in May 2022, before Musk’s acquisition.
Know more about Threads: Threads is a New Way to Share Text Posts.
