Tuna Cetin
Meta’s new Twitter-like microblogging app Threads has garnered millions of sign-ups after being launched on the App Store and Play Store in more than 100 countries.
Quite similar to Twitter, Threads lets users share short text posts of up to 500 characters, add links, photos, and videos of up to 5 minutes, and engage with other users on the platform by liking, reposting, and replying to their posts. It currently doesn’t have a direct-messaging feature though.
To get started with the app, users can simply use their Instagram credentials, after which they will be able to follow the accounts they already follow on Instagram. While they can choose whether they want their accounts to be private or public, all users under 16 (18 in some markets) will be defaulted into a private profile, just like on Instagram, the social media giant said in a blog post.
10 million sign-ups in 7 hours
Currently, one of the most popular accounts on the new platform is unsurprisingly the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, who announced today that Threads surpassed 10 million sign-ups in just seven hours.
This surge doesn’t come as a big surprise given Instagram’s already existing vast user base and users’ ability to simply associate their accounts with their IG profiles in just seconds.
Personally, I immediately downloaded Threads and created my profile to see what the early users of the app think about it. While I encountered many influencers who I already am accustomed to seeing on other platforms, the main feed of the app also showed me the posts of relatively less known users. Although Threads has given me a very Twitter-like vibe, the fact that it’s still in its early days, the ongoing surge in its user base, and the timing of its launch could turn into a very strong rival to the Elon Musk-owned company.
Threads vs. Twitter
The launch of Meta’s new microblogging app Threads comes just days after Twitter came under criticism again, this time for its newly announced temporary cap on the number of tweets users with/without a Blue subscription can view a day.
After completing his $44 billion acquisition in October, the billionaire announced many major changes to the company, including mass lay-offs, the replacement of the company’s previous legacy program with the new premium Twitter Blue plan, banning all third-party Twitter clients, a general amnesty for suspended accounts, etc.
While such changes prompted many users to switch to Twitter-alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, the company also lost more than 500 of its top advertisers. However, we haven’t seen any of those alternatives become as strong as Twitter yet, and Musk recently said that those advertisers are returning now. But Meta’s new Threads app may change the game significantly.
“It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,’’ Zuckerberg posted on Threads. ‘’Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.“
Zuckerberg returns to Twitter
Following the launch of Threads, Zuckerberg also made a comeback to Twitter after 11 years, and shared the popular Spiderman meme on the platform on his ‘unverified’ account.
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