Meta’s newly launched app Threads was downloaded by 30 million users on its first day, as per the company’s chief Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg pitched the app as a “friendly” rival to Twitter, which was bought for 44 billion in October 2022. Due to dissatisfaction with the erratic changes and limitations imposed on Twitter by Musk, Threads is an extremely attractive alternative for unhappy Twitter users looking for other social media platforms.
Sure enough, just two hours after Zuckerberg pressed the “launch” button on Threads, Zuckerberg triumphantly posted that 2 million people had already joined. Another two hours later, that number increased to 5 million. By the end of the day, Threads officially had a staggering 10 million users.
That was just the beginning.
Threads soon became the most rapidly downloaded app ever, even outstripping ChatGPT. And as per the analytics of Similarweb, if Threads keeps up the pace, it’s set to exceed a staggering 100 million users within its first two months.
“This is as good of a start as we could have hoped for!” Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post on Thursday. “Feels like the beginning of something special.”
When asked if his app will become “bigger than Twitter”, Zuckerberg replied: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion people on it.”
Judging by the number of Twitter users flocking to Threads in droves, Zuckerberg may just get his wish.
But if one person isn’t pleased about Threads’ success, it’s Elon Musk.
“Competition is fine, cheating is not” Musk tweeted on Thursday, probably referring to Threads’ interface, which is suspiciously similar to Twitter’s.
Competition is fine, cheating is not
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, also bit back against the new app. “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 7 Twitter clones,” he tweeted.
Mark Zuckerberg’s rivalry with Elon Musk, which escalated to both billionaires agreeing to a cage-match face-off just last month, may escalate to even newer heights. Apparently, Twitter is considering legal action against Meta. News platform Semafor has obtained a letter sent by Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro to Zuckerberg, where he asserts that Meta has utilized Twitter’s intellectual property and trade secrets to develop Threads.
Spiro claims that Meta hired a number of Twitter employees who retained access to Twitter’s confidential information such as its trade secrets. These employees were assigned to develop a “copycat” app, which would violate both state and federal laws.
“Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms has engaged in systemic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” Spiro wrote, adding that Twitter plans to “strictly enforce its intellectual property rights,” he added.
Threads has not taken this accusation lying down. In a post to Threads, Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, asserted that no former Twitter engineers were working for Threads. “That’s just not a thing,” he wrote.
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