More than 10 million people signed up for Meta’s Twitter rival Threads within the first few hours of its launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday.
The app will go live on Wednesday at 23:00 GMT in Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries and will run ad-free for the time being, though its European release has been delayed due to data privacy concerns.
Threads is Elon Musk’s Twitter’s biggest challenger yet. Twitter has a series of potential competitors that have emerged, but despite its struggles, it has yet to replace one of the world’s largest social media platforms.
Zuckerberg wrote on his official Thread account on Thursday that he had “10 million registrations in seven hours.”
Accounts were already active with celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Hugh Jackman and media outlets such as: Washington Post and economist.
Zuckerberg also suggested attacking Musk over the bow. The two were known to be bitter rivals and offered to challenge each other in a cage fight.
In his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted Spider-Man referring to a Spider-Man meme, apparently referring to similarities between threads.
In Threads he writes: Twitter had the opportunity to do this, but failed to deliver. Hopefully so. ”
Twitter announced that it has more than 200 million daily users.
“Be kind”
Threads was apparently introduced as a spin-off of Instagram. Instagram has built in his over 2 billion users, avoiding the challenges of starting a new platform from scratch.
Instagram chief executive Adam Mosseri told users that Threads aims to build an “open and friendly conversation platform.”
“The best thing to do is be kind, if you want to,” he said.
Zuckerberg is widely understood to be using Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to launch new products, and Mehta can rely on this for celebrities, businesses and politicians. I hope it will become a platform.
“It’s pretty simple,” said strategic finance analyst Brian Wieser. “Once Instagram users with large followings like the Kardashians, Biebers and Messi start posting regularly to threads, the new platform will be ready. It can thrive,” he said. sub stack.
Analyst Jasmine Emberg insider information It said Threads needed only one in four monthly Instagram users “to get as big as Twitter.”
“Twitter users are desperate for alternatives, and Musk gave Zuckerberg a chance,” she added.
Under Musk, Twitter saw minimal content moderation, glitches and rash decisions that scared celebrities and big advertisers.
He pissed off Twitter’s most avid aficionados with this: It declared access to its TweetDeck product, which allows users to view a high-speed flow of tweets at once, only to paying customers.
Brexit is ‘many months’ away
Meta has a lot of detractors, especially in Europe, which could slow the thread’s growth.
The company has been criticized for its handling of personal data, an essential component of targeted advertising that helps it earn billions of dollars.
Mosseri said he regretted the delay in launching in the European Union, but if Meta waited for regulatory clarifications from Brussels, the thread’s realization would be “months and months away.” said it would have been.
“I was worried that the window would be closed because timing is important,” he told the technology news site. platformer.
Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Market Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world’s “gatekeepers” Internet companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
One of the rules is to restrict platforms from moving user data between products, as can happen between Threads and Instagram.
Meta has been accused of doing just that after acquiring WhatsApp, and European regulators will be on the lookout for illegal activity on Threads.
Worldwide, Twitter’s Threads hashtag has attracted more than a million tweets, jokingly suggesting that many users will return to Musk’s platform.
“10 minutes into Threads app. Back on Twitter,” wrote one user, sharing a video of a man sprinting.
Some expressed privacy concerns.
“Meta loves to collect personal information, but I don’t trust the way meta treats personal information,” a Japanese user tweeted. “I have the impression that the company is hated even by the EU, so I’m reluctant.”
However, some said they would move to Threads forever.
One thread user wrote, “Now you can truly say goodbye to Twitter forever.”