Rama Krishna Sangem
Rivalry between two social media platforms –Twitter and Threads -fast hotting up. Meta’s new social media platform Threads reached the milestone of 100 million sign-ups in just five days of its launch, its chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced on July 10 Monday in a post on the platform.
“Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!” he posted.
According to CBS News, this means that Threads has become the fastest-growing app in history, outpacing ChatGPT and TikTok. Earlier, the coveted title was held by ChatGPT, which saw 100 million monthly active users in two months. TikTok took nine months to get the same user base. Instagram, the Meta-owned platform to which Threads is linked, took over two years to build up a user base of 100 million.
Creative Space to express ideas
Meta released its standalone Twitter rival, Threads, last week. Based on Instagram’s account system, the app allows users to share text updates, post links, reply or report messages, and join public conversations. In an official statement, Meta said, “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.”
Like Instagram, users can follow and connect with friends and creators, including the people they follow on Instagram. Threads was launched in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android users.
The app comes at a time when Elon Musk’s Twitter is struggling to make good revenues. Last month, media reports stated that Twitter’s US advertising revenue in April plunged 59 per cent from a year earlier, despite Musk’s claims that its business was “upswing”.
Musk also said that he hired Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive, as chief executive officer of Twitter to try to “improve relationships with brands”.
Later Twitter threatened legal action against Meta over Threads. In a letter to Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a copycat app.
The move ramped up the tensions between the social media giants. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone then wrote on Threads, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee that’s just not a thing.”.
