Meta’s new text-based social app Threads has quickly gained 100 million users since launching last week, which appears to be negatively impacting traffic on Twitter. According to web analytics, Twitter traffic declined 5-11% over the first two days Threads was available compared to the previous week. Threads was able to grow rapidly by allowing users to sign up with their existing Instagram accounts and bring over some of their followers. However, Threads has not yet launched in Europe due to regulatory issues. The fast growth of Threads may solidify its position as a real competitor to Twitter, which has over 238 million daily active users.

  • GuyDudeman@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    65
    ·
    2 years ago

    This is a moment when I’d love to use the “you love to see it” meme comment, but it’s more like… “People are fleeing the burning building, and running across the street to an identical building that is infested with rats and cockroaches!”

  • Stormyfemme@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    2 years ago

    Don’t think that meta turning into even more of a global social megacorp that controls everything a lot of people seee and interact with day to day is a good thing tbh.

    • Feanor@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      2 years ago

      Most people happily exchange one master for another without thinking much about it

  • Max_Power@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    2 years ago

    Threads has not yet launched in Europe due to regulatory issues

    LOL no, there are no “regulatory issues”. Meta itself expects Threads to be illegal in the EU. Which is probably correct. And they do not seem to be having a problem with it. Which is fine by me.

  • araquen@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    2 years ago

    I am willing to be corrected, but from what I understand from my online friend (who is Indian (living in the region) and reports on tech with a focus on India, Asia and Southeast Asia), a lot of Threads’ early adoption is entrenchment. For instance, most of India’s IG users migrated to Threads, and that was part of the initial 10 million.

    I just don’t think that we can look at Threads’ adoption rates in the same way as, say, we look at Mastodon or even early Twitter. Threads is built upon an existing base: Instagram. Meta even pre-made your Threads account if you have IG. I mean, technically I have a Threads account, sitting there, in the shadows. I also have an Excite account. And I dug up my MySpace account in a fit of pique (and then remembered why I left MySpace all those years ago). But having something and using something are different.

    That not to say that Threads isn’t going to end up as Meta’s “revenge” just that the adoption is not necessarily because Threads is better, but that the entire social media monetization culture is pre-built through Instagram; and there not only is no barrier to entry, but you can stumble into the Threads “garden” with ease. It’s basically the same model Microsoft used to bootstrap Windows using the pre-installed DOS base. And it will succeed because the outreach mechanisms are already in place.

    That doesn’t change my mind about choosing Mastodon. I have different online handles for different needs. I lost my original IG handle many years ago, so made one using my real name to lurk on IG; so my Threads handle will end up being my real name, and that’s a show stopper for using the platform. My real name social media are “honey pots” to keep nosey companies out of my hair and ways to keep an eye on my squirrelly remnants of a family. I have no desire to post anything on my real name Threads identity.

  • drilly@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    2 years ago

    I tried out Threads just to see what the fuss was about. It’s mostly just annoying celebrities.

    • Limeade@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 years ago

      Wouldn’t cumulative user-seconds of screen time per day be plummeting if you can only see 500 tweets per day or whatever that limit was that he rolled out? I’d be doubting any company’s claims of record high viewership at a time when most of their users were reportedly being locked out of the site due to a new policy, even if their metric didn’t have such an oddly specific name.