Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire tech mogul at the helm of Meta, shared that Threads, the newly unveiled social media app positioned as a direct competitor to Twitter, witnessed an extraordinary influx of 10 million sign-ups in its first few hours of operation.
In an attempt to draw users from Elon Musk’s troubled platform, Zuckerberg revealed that his company aimed to attract them by offering the feature of longer posts.
As reported by The Guardian UK, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, decided to extend the app’s launch by 15 hours, making it available at 7:00 pm on Wednesday in the United States and midnight on Thursday in the United Kingdom.
While the app’s introduction granted free access in 100 countries on the Apple and Google app stores, its availability in the European Union (EU) has been impacted by regulatory concerns.
The app witnessed a rapid influx of brand accounts shortly after its release, with prominent names like Billboard, HBO, NPR, and Netflix joining the platform. Meta disclosed that celebrity supporters included Shakira and Gordon Ramsay, and there were reports of potential involvement from Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama.
Users of Thread will be prompted to log in using their Instagram accounts. After successfully signing up, they will have the choice to follow the same accounts they currently follow on Instagram, assuming those accounts are available on the new app as well.
In terms of its visual presentation, the app shares a strong resemblance to Twitter. However, there have been adjustments in the choice of terminology, such as retweets being labeled as ‘reposts’ and tweets as ‘threads’.
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Meta has exhibited a tendency to imitate rival products in the past, as highlighted by the introduction of Instagram’s Reels feature in 2020, which closely resembled TikTok’s popular short-form video concept.
Posts on Threads have an extended character limit of 500, surpassing the usual 280-character restriction for most Twitter users. Moreover, users can share videos up to five minutes in duration and easily share their posts as links on other platforms. Users have control options including the ability to unfollow, block, restrict, or report others, as well as the ability to filter out replies containing specific words.
Following the initial Threads posts, Zuckerberg acknowledged and dived into the aforementioned challenges.
His post reads: ‘I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will.’
The response to the Wednesday launch was a mix of caution and enthusiasm, as users praised the app’s intuitive design and ease of use. Several individuals even voiced the opinion that Elon Musk should be concerned about the app’s potential impact.
The app’s swift integration with Instagram was cited by some as a testament to Meta’s growing dominance. Paradoxically, a serious discussion about the app unfolded on Twitter, with the hashtag ‘Threads’ trending on Wednesday evening.