Twitter has gained a formidable rival. Instagram, part of Meta Platforms, launched Threads on the App Store and in less than a day, it has garnered millions of users.
On the morning of Thursday, July 6, Eastern Time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Threads that, as of that morning, Threads had more than 30 million registered users. Some users commented on Zuckerberg's post, speculating that the number could reach 100 million by the following day.
The Financial Times noted that Zuckerberg's post came just 16 hours after Threads officially went live. Zuckerberg himself already has one million followers on Threads. Nine hours prior, he disclosed that the number of registered users had exceeded 10 million in just seven hours. He had previously posted that over five million users had registered on Threads within four hours of its launch.
Media statistics found that Threads was the most downloaded free app on the Apple App Store on Thursday morning.
When Meta released Threads on Wednesday, they described it as a "text-based conversation app" for Instagram. From that day, users could download it for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play in over 100 countries.
After the launch of Threads, users found that it resembles a clone of Twitter. Its users primarily post text-based posts that can't exceed 500 words. Users can tag specific users with the "@" symbol in front of their username, set posts to be reply-able only by followers or those tagged, and also add photos or videos in posts.
However, since Threads and Instagram securely share data, users can directly log in with their Instagram account, and personal profiles and external account links can be imported from Instagram with one click. In the default "Focus" recommendations, all friends come from the Instagram friends list.
Meta hopes that Threads will become part of the Fediverse network in the future. As long as users have a Threads account, they can interact with users of other decentralized social platforms. For instance, Threads' users won't need to register a Facebook account to communicate with Facebook users or follow their Facebook friends.
Currently, Threads does not have the aforementioned feature to join the Fediverse universe and lacks a desktop version. Moreover, it's missing some features that mainstream social media platforms possess.
Compared to sister apps like Twitter and Facebook, Threads does not currently have the functionality to directly send private messages. It also lacks one of Twitter's core features-the ability to tag topics, meaning users cannot search for specific texts or phrases on Threads at the moment.
While Threads has yet to host paid advertisements, many brands have already joined the platform. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who oversees Threads, disclosed that if Threads can scale, ads will not be an issue.
Of course, Threads is not going to stop here and is off to a good start. Zuckerberg mentioned in his post announcing the 30 million registered users, "It feels like something special is starting, but to build this app, we have a lot of work to do."
Some analysts have warned that it is not yet clear how much new revenue Threads will bring to Meta. However, Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have been signaling recently that they are gearing up to compete directly with Twitter.
Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, "This will take some time. I believe there should be a public conversation app used by over a billion people. Twitter had a chance to become such a platform, but they didn't make it. We hope we will."
