Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and Meta launched their new text-based app, Threads. The application creates a new social media platform that directly competes with Twitter.
Threads was supposed to launch earlier this morning, however Meta ended up releasing it to app stores a day early. Earlier this week, Meta had announced that the app will be coming soon, but most did not expect soon to mean within the same week. Since their announcement of the app, people have been trying to figure out exactly what the platform will bring to the table. Meta has even seen a 3% increase in its shares, suspectedly because of the talks of the new platform.
Threads took to Instagram to post a blog explaining the new platform; the blog post said, “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.”
The platform saw over 2 million signups within the first 2 hours of the app being available, followed by over 5 million signups within the first 4 hours. The app has clearly gained a lot of traction, signup rates are not expected to dwindle any time soon. While Twitter currently holds over 206 million users since its inception in 2006, Threads has managed 10 million in the first 24 hours of a platform’s existence.
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter last October for $44 billion, the once-prolific social media site lost some serious steam. Zuckerberg took his launch success to Twitter, with his first tweet in 10 years being the cartoon image of two Spiderman’s pointing at each other, in order to troll the new platform’s rival.
Threads is available to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It is also available as a website via threads.net.