With Twitter swaying left and right in the wind, Zuckerberg is taking advantage of the stormy weather.

Twitter has dominated the industry as a short-form social communication platform for almost two decades now. In October 2022, Twitter was sold for 44 billion USD, making the richest man in the world in charge of the social networking platform. Since that, major changes have been made to Twitter’s operations, including cutting 80% from its staff and as the latest, major change, setting viewing limits for users within the platform. The rumor has it that Twitter in Elon Musk’s hands is falling apart as a new competitor, Threads, just got launched to the market

Threads was launched today, July 6th, in 100 different countries, including the US and UK. Threads is Meta’s new social networking platform where users can use their Instagram handle to create an account, write quick-read posts under 500 characters and include links, videos, and photos. It’s rivaling Twitter with a similar model and interface and – more so – steady and powerful management team. Threads passed 10 million signups in seven hours after launch. However, the app has not been launched in the EU, and will not be for some time.

With Twitter’s blue bird watching the “takeover” from its nest, while fighting against data scraping and system manipulation, it’s good to remember Meta’s history with new launches. The alleged next big trend, the Metaverse, silently died down after a huge hype from the public. Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was forced to say, that Metaverse is not even their ‘focus’. After such a flop like the Metaverse, the public may stay on their tiptoes when it comes to Meta launching new, super-hyped, apps. However, numbers do not lie. Threads cloning a platform with 450 million active monthly users, that is currently going through massive challenges, making it easy and accessible for users to move into the new platform, it might show the public that Meta knows what it is doing.

Elon Musk’s focus on saving the blue bird from technical issues, Zuckerberg is coming in from behind. Soon may be time for that cage fight.

Sanni S

Sources:

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/05/threads-metas-twitter-competitor-is-now-live/

https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000009698763.html

https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000009696790.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/28/tech/elon-musk-twitter-deal-close/index.html

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/05/threads-passes-2-million-downloads-in-2-hours/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/03/how-twitter-new-changes-will-affect-users-rate-limited-limit-exceeded-restrictions

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/elon-musk-bbc-interview-twitter-intl-hnk/index.html