The success of Meta’s Twitter dupe hinges on one-upping the original (Zuck style)
Rethread = the new retweet?… Meta's “Twitter killer,” Threads, became the fastest-growing social app ever last week, hitting 100M users within five days of launch. FYI: Twitter had 240M daily scrollers a year ago (the last time it shared #s before Elon Musk bought it). Twitter responded to Threads by saying it would sue Meta, while Musk asked Mark Zuckerberg to up the ante from a cage fight to (ahem) an anatomical-measuring contest.
Nepo baby: Over 3B (yes, billion) users already use Meta’s “family of apps,” and Threads was launched with close links to popular older sibling Instagram.
Locked in: Not only do users need an Insta account to sign up, but the only way to delete Threads is to… also delete IG.
Anything you can do… Meta thinks it can do better — by using its “copy, acquire, kill” strategy. It snapped up WhatsApp and Insta early, and after failing to buy Snapchat and TikTok (then called Musical.ly), Meta added copycat features like Stories and Reels. But Threads takes mimicry to another level as a standalone app (Zuck even tweeted the “Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man” meme last week — his first tweet in over a decade).
- More cats, less controversy: While Twitter has lost ad $$ over controversial content, an advertiser-friendly approach could clear Threads’ path to $8B in revenue by 2025. IG head Adam Mosseri said Threads won’t encourage news and politics.
Imitation works only when it’s done better… Lookalike features have been a win for Meta as users opt for the convenience of its all-in-one social ecosystem. This year, Zuck said Insta usage had grown 24% since adding Reels. Still, it hasn't killed rivals like TikTok and Snap. Plus, some folks are concerned about giving all their social-networking time (and data) to one mega corp. As Threads adds new features, it’s too early to call whether it’ll go the way of Insta or the way of defunct Google+ (which was called a “Facebook killer”).