Threads is a text-based app introduced by Meta rivalling Twitter in concept. It’s free to use, and easy to sign up for using an Instagram log-in. Usernames, bios and profile pictures carry over, and users can automatically follow all the same accounts from Instagram.
Posts can be up to 500 characters, with links, photos and videos up to 5 minutes long. Threads can be shared to Instagram stories and feeds, and other user’s posts can be reposted or quoted in app. Selected words and phrases can also be hidden from a feed.
Keep in mind that once a thread has been posted, it can’t be edited. Blocked accounts on Instagram will be blocked on Threads, and due to their interconnectivity, deleting one account deletes both.
Two weeks on from the launch, July 6th, here’s a recap of everything that’s happened.
- More than 70 million users signed up in the first twenty-four hours, ‘threading’ 95 million times with over 190 million likes.
- On day five Threads broke the record for the fastest app to reach 100 million sign-ups, the previous record from ChatGPT taking two months.
- At the current sign-up rate, it would take Threads until September to surpass Twitter for users.
What is interesting to note is that despite breaking records for sign-ups, the number of users sticking around is falling. Launch day reported 41.7 million daily active android users, increasing to 49.3 million the following day. One week later this number halved to 23.6 million. Time spent also saw a drop, on July 7th, users spent an average of 21 minutes daily on the app and again, a week later this had fallen to 6 minutes.
Mark Zuckerberg addressed the dip in active users with a thread of his own.
“I’m very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together. Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily.
“That’s way ahead of what we expected. The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too.”
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