Twitter Rival 'Threads' Launches

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Facts

  • Facebook's parent company Meta released the social media platform and Twitter rival Threads on Thursday, with the app seeing in excess of 30M users sign up for the platform.1
  • The App Store describes the platform as a text-based app where "communities come together to discuss everything," with accounts linked to users' corresponding Instagram profiles. Posts can be shared — dependent on personal preference — with anyone on the site, only people an account follows, or only selected profiles.2
  • The app will support text posts of up to 500 characters, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes long. Threads is currently available on IOS and Android in over 100 countries — excluding the European Union due to regulatory concerns.3
  • According to a report in December 2022 from The New York Times, Meta is aiming to capitalize on the instability surrounding Twitter, with one employee writing internally that it was time to attack the platform's "BREAD AND BUTTER [sic]."4
  • This follows recent turbulence experienced by Twitter. Commenting on Threads, Musk tweeted "thank goodness they're so sanely run," echoing previous comments by Meta executives on his own business management.5

Sources: 1BBC News, 2Yahoo Finance, 3Forbes, 4New York Times, and 5CNN.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Telegraph. Zuckerberg is jumping on the chaos that has ensued at Twitter ever since Musk's takeover last October. Bleeding advertising cash alongside many users actively leaving the platform, Twitter is losing extensive amounts of money and is certainly vulnerable. Although smaller rivals have inflicted little real damage, Meta and Threads pose a much more credible threat to Musk and Twitter.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Spectator (UK). Whilst Twitter is undoubtedly facing a period of uncertainty, it will regardless remain a tall order for Threads to topple the platform. Although Zuckerberg perhaps can succeed where others have failed, the move remains an uninspired and unimaginative one — merely copying Twitter after a string of homegrown failures in tandem with the eye-watering losses the Metaverse continues to accrue.

Predictions