Meta’s new app Threads has achieved a significant milestone, gaining 100 million sign-ups within just five days of its launch. This surpasses the growth rate of ChatGPT, making Threads the fastest-growing online platform to reach this milestone. The app has attracted attention from celebrities, politicians, and other influential figures, positioning itself as a serious rival to Twitter, which has experienced a decline in web traffic since Threads’ launch.
However, the app’s rollout in the EU has been delayed due to concerns surrounding data privacy. The app’s privacy disclosure reveals that it collects sensitive user information and can forward it to third parties.
While Threads bears a strong resemblance to Twitter, offering 500-character posts with support for links, photos, and videos, it currently lacks certain features such as direct messaging, hashtags, and keyword search functions. However, the turmoil at Twitter, including recent limits on tweet visibility, could work in Threads’ favor and attract users from those specific groups.
Threads’ rapid growth has surpassed other competitors like Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, and T2, which remain relatively small in comparison. Mastodon, for example, has around 7.7 million total users, but only a fraction actively use the service.
Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, stated that Threads’ current focus is on user growth rather than monetization. Ads are not yet featured on the app, and the company will only consider monetization once it reaches 1 billion users. Instagram head Adam Mosseri emphasized that Threads aims to focus on light subjects like sports, music, fashion, and design, although politics and hard news are expected to surface on the platform.
Despite some missing features and limitations, Threads’ achievement of reaching 100 million users in such a short time is commendable. Meta’s shares have also experienced a positive response, closing up 1.2% on Monday. The company aims to make Threads compatible with open, interoperable social networks and is planning to integrate the ActivityPub protocol, enabling connections with other apps like Mastodon and WordPress.
As Threads continues to evolve, the challenge lies in retaining users on the platform. With its impressive initial growth, Threads has demonstrated its potential to become a significant player in the social media landscape.
