Newest micro-blogging platform, Threads, owned by Meta, has crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of launch. This is even as Threads, yesterday, dethroned ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform to hit the milestone.
Owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Threads has been setting records for user growth since its launch on last Wednesday, with celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers joining the platform that is seen by analysts as the first serious threat to the Elon Musk-owned microblogging app, Twitter.
Last week, President Bola Tinubu, and former vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, and other celebrities joined the platform. Zuckerberg, in a Threads post, described the development as milestone, saying, “That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet.”
Reuters noted that the app’s sprint to 100 million users was much speedier than that of OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, which became the fastest-growing consumer application in history in January about two months after its launch, according to a UBS study.
Twitter had nearly 240 million monetisable daily active users as of July last year, according to the company’s last public disclosure before Musk’s takeover, although data from web analytics companies indicate usage has dropped since then.
Twitter’s web traffic was down 11 per cent from the year prior in the days after the Threads launch, compared to the four per cent it was down year-over-year as of June, according to Similarweb.
Musk has responded to Threads’ arrival by mocking it and threatening to sue Meta, alleging that the social media behemoth used its trade secrets and other confidential information to build the app.
That claim, legal experts say, could be hard to prove. Threads bears a strong resemblance to Twitter, as do numerous other social media sites that have cropped up in recent months as users have chafed at Musk’s management of the service. It allows posts that are up to 500 characters long and supports links, photos and videos of up to five minutes.
The app also does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organisations rely on.
It also lacks hashtags and keyword search functions, which limits both its appeal to advertisers and its utility as a place for following real-time events like users frequently do on Twitter.
Still, analysts said the turmoil at Twitter, including recently imposed limits on the number on tweets users can see, could help Threads to attract users and advertisers.
Currently, there are no ads on the Threads app and Zuckerberg said the company would only think about monetization once there was a clear path to one billion users.
Instagram Head, Adam Mosseri, said last week Meta was not trying to replace Twitter and that Threads aimed to focus on light subjects like sports, music, fashion and design.
