(Reuters) – Meta Platforms’ latest social media creation, Threads, has taken the online world by storm, surpassing 100 million sign-ups in just five days since its launch. The CEO of Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg, proudly announced this achievement, highlighting that Threads has outpaced ChatGPT to become the fastest-growing online platform to reach this milestone.
Since its official release last Wednesday, Threads has been breaking records with its staggering user growth. Analysts view this new platform as the first significant threat to Elon Musk’s microblogging app, Twitter. Prominent personalities from various fields, including celebrities, politicians, and newsmakers, have swiftly joined Threads, contributing to its rapid expansion.
Mark Zuckerberg, in a Threads post announcing the impressive milestone, exclaimed, “That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet.”
When compared to OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, Threads’ race to 100 million users was notably faster. A UBS study revealed that ChatGPT, launched roughly two months before Threads, claimed the title of the fastest-growing consumer application in history back in January. However, Threads has some catching up to do as Twitter boasted nearly 240 million monetizable daily active users in July of the previous year, prior to Musk’s acquisition.
In response to the emergence of Threads, Twitter has threatened to take legal action against Meta, claiming that the social media giant utilized its trade secrets and confidential information to develop the new app. However, legal experts believe that proving such allegations could be challenging.
Threads bears a striking resemblance to Twitter, along with several other social media platforms that have sprouted in recent months as dissatisfaction grew among users regarding Musk’s management of the service. The app allows posts of up to 500 characters, supports links, photos, and videos lasting up to 5 minutes. Nonetheless, it currently lacks a direct messaging function and a desktop version, which could be a drawback for certain users, particularly business organizations.
Moreover, Threads presently does not offer hashtags or keyword search functions, significantly limiting its appeal to advertisers and its capabilities for real-time event updates, a feature that Twitter users frequently rely on. Nonetheless, industry analysts speculate that the upheaval within Twitter, including the introduction of tweet visibility limitations, could strongly contribute to Threads’ ability to attract users and advertisers.
While the Threads app currently does not feature any advertisements, Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company would only consider monetization once they have a clear path to 1 billion users.
Last week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri clarified that Meta’s intention is not to replace Twitter. Instead, Threads aims to center around light-hearted subjects like sports, music, fashion, and design. However, given the nature of online engagement, political and hard news content is bound to make an appearance on Threads, presenting a challenge for the app that positions itself as the “friendly” alternative for online public discourse.
(Reporting by Katie Paul in New York and Akash Sriram and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Rashmi Aich, and Nick Zieminski)
Credit: The Star : Tech Feed
