Meta‘s Threads racked up more than 30 million sign-ups within about 18 hours of its launch, emerging as the first real threat to Elon Musk‘s Twitter, as it took advantage of its access to billions of Instagram users and a similar look to its rival.
Threads, dubbed the “Twitter-Killer,” was the top free app on Apple’s App Store in the UK and the US on Thursday. Its arrival comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Musk have been exchanging barbs for months, even threatening to fight in a real-life mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas.
“The cage match has started, and Zuckerberg delivered a major blow. In many ways, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Meta: Stellar execution and an easy-to-navigate user interface,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said.
According to the publication Semafor, Twitter responded on Thursday by threatening to sue Meta, citing a letter delivered to Zuckerberg by a Twitter lawyer.
Meta, in its response, stated that no one on the Threads engineering team previously worked for Twitter.
Following Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform last year, which was followed by a series of chaotic decisions that alienated both users and advertisers, a slew of competitors have emerged. Musk’s most recent move was to limit the number of tweets that users could read per day.
Twitter’s stumbles, analysts and experts say, open the door for a well-funded competitor like Meta Platforms, owing to its access to Instagram users and advertising strength.
“Meta’s release of Threads came at the perfect time to give it a fighting chance to unseat Twitter,” said Niklas Myhr, professor of marketing at Chapman University, referring to the turmoil at Twitter after it limited the number of tweets users could see.
“Threads will be off to a running start as it is built upon the Instagram platform with its massive user base and if users adopt Threads, advertisers will be following closely behind.”
Other competitors have had mixed results. Mastodon, another Twitter-like app, has 1.7 million monthly active users, according to its website, while Bluesky, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has around 265,000 users.
In May 2022, Twitter had 229 million active monthly users, according to a statement made prior to Musk’s acquisition.
The more than 2 billion monthly active users of Instagram can easily add Threads because it is a standalone app that allows users to log in using their Instagram credentials.
Given that Threads currently lacks Twitter’s bells and whistles, its launch was obviously just a first attempt at a service.
“There should be a public conversation app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will,” Zuckerberg said on Threads, where he now has a million followers.
Threads lack hashtags and keyword search functions, so users cannot follow real-time events like on Twitter. It also does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organisations, rely on.
Some users, including tech reviewer Marques Brownlee, expressed the desire for a feed that only contains the people they follow. Users currently have limited control over the main feed.
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, who was hired by Musk in May to shore up advertiser confidence, said in a tweet on Thursday that “everyone’s voice matters” on the app. “We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”
There are currently no ads on the Threads app, and Zuckerberg stated that the company would consider monetization once there was a clear path to 1 billion users.
Existing ad relationships with Instagram and Facebook should help Threads’ revenue, according to Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
“Facebook is a less uncertain bet compared to Twitter and a bigger player in the ad market.”
According to some analysts, Threads was inspired by Meta’s success in integrating critical features from platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok in the case of Instagram’s Stories and Reels.
At least four brokerages increased their price targets on Meta, whose stock has already more than doubled in value this year.
Meta shares were down 0.2% on Thursday, after rising 3% on Wednesday ahead of Threads’ launch.