The tech billionaires’ rivalry is heating up with the launch of Meta’s Instagram companion service, Threads. Mark Zuckerberg delivered a devastating blow to Elon Musk on Wednesday as 5 million people signed up for the new microblogging app in just four hours.
Threads follows closely in Twitter’s footsteps, allowing users to post 500 character messages that can include links, photos, and videos up to five minutes long. Already available in over 100 countries on both Apple and Google stores, it appears Threads could quickly gain traction by piggybacking off Instagram’s enormous user base and advertising capabilities. This could spell trouble for Twitter, whose struggling business is being turned around by its new CEO.
Attractively bundled with the ease of logging in through Instagram credentials and following the same accounts has the potential to make Threads an easy addition to existing habits. With the tech titans at war, the latest battle between Threads and Twitter will be one to watch.
Investors have their eyes firmly fixed on Meta as the social media platform looks to upend Twitter’s dominance. 3% stock gains outpaced competitor tech companies as the market edged downwards, signaling investors’ optimism ahead of the launch.
This arrives in the midst of a rather heated rivalry between tech titans Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, with Musk having acquired Twitter to the tune of $44 billion only for it to come undone months later amid an exodus of advertisers, deep staffing cuts and controversial content moderation moves. In response, Zuckerberg penned a post on Threads calling for a public conversations app with more than a billion people using it – and that appears to be what you get with Meta.
Integration with Instagram has also been considered when it comes to privacy, with users able to keep their badge-affixed profile private should they so choose, as well as having options to adjust privacy settings for each app.
It might just be that Meta will make good on its promise of a ‘Twitter killer’, but we’ll have to wait until the launch to find out.
In a remarkable move, the latest social media app – Threads – was launched and quickly gained traction with major companies like Billboard, HBO, NPR, Netflix, and prominent celebrities such as Shakira and former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. According to Reuters, the app does not appear to display any ads.
Meta has been actively courting influencers to gain traction for the app, motivating them to post at least twice each day. Many of these influencers took to their new app to thank them for early access.
Threads is taking advantage of other would-be Twitter competitors’ lack of success; Mastodon, Post, Truth Social and T2 have all attempted to draw users away from Twitter but remain relatively small so far. Bluesky – a new service backed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey – also launched a beta invite-only in February and had accumulated 50,000 users by April according to its website. Dorsey also supported Nostr., yet another platform looking to break into the social media market.
It remains to be seen how successful Threads will be in recruiting Twitter users, but judging from initial reactions, they seem to be off to a promising start.