The recent official launch of Threads by Meta has resulted in overwhelming success. The platform has gained significant traction in a short period of time, causing even Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, to express concern. Musk went as far as threatening to sue Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, in response to the newly launched platform.
According to CNBC, since its debut last week, Threads has surpassed 100 million sign-ups, causing a slowdown in user traffic on Twitter. Meta executives, including Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, are promoting Threads as a more positive platform for communities that haven’t fully embraced Twitter. Users have responded positively to the platform’s launch.
In a post, Zuckerberg expressed astonishment at Threads’ rapid success, stating, “Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even activated many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!”
As a result of this, Twitter has experienced a negative impact, with their traffic going down the hill.
Twitter’s web traffic decreased by 5% during the first two full days of Threads’ availability compared to the previous week. Additionally, Twitter’s web traffic is down 11% compared to the same days in 2022.
The rapid growth of Threads can be attributed to its integration with Meta’s existing social network, Instagram. Users can sign up using their existing Instagram handles and retain a portion of their followers as others join the app.
Threads achieved the milestone of 100 million users even faster than OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, which reached 100 million monthly users in two months.
Although Threads has not yet launched in Europe due to regulatory complexities, Mosseri mentioned the app’s potential for growth. If Threads is able to maintain its user base, it could establish itself as a genuine competitor to Twitter.