On July 4, Beijing time, on July 5, 2023, Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of Twitter (renamed X) to be in chaos and launched the social media application Threads.The app was labeled a "Twitter killer" by the media, causing a stir. But a year has passed, and Threads has not replaced X.
On Wednesday local time, just as the social media application Threads celebrated its first anniversary, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced good news in advance: Threads’ monthly active users exceeded 175 million.
"What an amazing year," Zuckerberg posted on Threads.
Zuckerberg announces Threads user numbers
Last year, Zuckerberg took advantage of the turmoil caused by Elon Musk's acquisition of X to quickly launch Threads. After a year of development, Threads has the potential to become a strong competitor of X. Threads, which has amassed 175 million active users and collaborated with A-list celebrities like Taylor Swift, combines X-like text, image and video feeds with the brand-friendly appeal of Instagram.
Still small scale
With the strong support of Meta, Threads got off to a smooth start. Because people can follow Threads through Meta's photo-sharing app Instagram, the app attracted more than 100 million user registrations in its first five days, including comedian Ellen DeGeneres, New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and singer Selena Gomez.
The rapid development of Threads is exciting. It once seemed expected to challenge or even replace X and become the center of global virtual social networking. However, as the novelty wore off, Threads' growth began to stall. Although Swift has 10 million Threads followers, she has not posted on Threads since April.
Still, the app is growing.Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that the app has added 25 million active users in the past three months, but that's still dwarfed by X's user base.
The number of X users is more than three times that of Threads
Musk revealed in May that X had 600 million monthly active users, more than three times the number of Threads. However, some independent analysts have found that since Musk acquired X in October 2022, the platform has been shrinking rather than growing. Market research company Emarketer predicts that,As of the end of 2023, X had approximately 56 million users in the United States, while Threads had 29 million users, and the gap is expected to close in 2024.
Lack of three major elements
In November this year, the United States will usher in a presidential election, and social media is also an important battlefield for candidates. But one of the biggest obstacles to Threads’ success may be self-imposed limitations. Adam Mosseri, the leader of Threads and head of Instagram, believes that Threads can surpass X without borrowing the elements of X’s success.X’s success is due to the app’s promotion of three categories of content: breaking news, politics, and hot social issues.
Over the next four months, Mosseri's theory would be put to the test. Mosseri believes users and advertisers are hungry for a platform that provides the latest news and commentary on celebrities, sports teams and fashion trends without worrying about political controversy. Advertisers have long made Meta products lucrative.
The goal, he said in a recent interview, is to create a "place where people can share their thoughts without being angry." This feel-good mentality was on display last week at VidCon, the annual online video content creators conference in Anaheim, California. Meta set up a large-scale "Creator Cafe" at the conference, providing free coffee and pastries to Internet celebrities who are willing to listen to its promotion of Threads. On Thursday, the company celebrated Threads' one-year anniversary by cutting into a frosted chocolate cake decorated with a black ribbon and the Threads logo.
identity positioning
Beyond tasting the cake, creators said they like Threads not as a replacement for X (most of them don’t use it that much) but as a low-risk alternative to Instagram.
Sohee Carpenter is a fitness internet celebrity with more than 639,000 followers on Instagram and less than 100,000 followers on Threads. Threads "makes her feel a lot more relaxed," she said.
The appeal of influencers to Instagram users is well established.The question is whether their posts will equally appeal to users of fast-paced, text-heavy platforms like Threads.
"Threads hasn't fully formed its own identity yet," said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Emarketer. "To thrive long-term, it needs a community and a purpose beyond just posting across platforms from Instagram."
Stay away from politics
Meta has his reasons for choosing to stay away from politics. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that Americans are paying less attention to political news and their trust in media brands has also plummeted.Meta has long said that most people use platforms like Facebook and Instagram more to share updates about their lives and follow creators than to follow news.
X leverages news and commentary to achieve cultural relevance, touting its users’ “citizen journalism” as a superior alternative to newspapers.However, advertisers have long chosen to avoid the platform due to its toxic nature and unattractive marketing tools. Big brands typically avoid advertising next to political content, preferring to promote their products next to less controversial topics.
Mosseri
Mosseri admits he has difficulty articulating and defending the company's positions on news and politics. Social media platforms, including Meta's, have long been influential in politics and social movements, from promoting the #MeToo movement to covering Trump's political career.
"It's not that we're not interested in news," Mosseri said. "Users don't want to see this content. I don't want to amplify political influence by showing them posts about elections, wars or even social issues."
Meta has been reluctant to detail how it determines which posts and accounts are political and how it defines social issues.Meta spokesperson Seine Kim said the company uses machine learning algorithms to identify potentially politically charged posts and accounts on Threads and Instagram so it can avoid recommending them to users who don't already follow those accounts. She noted that users on both platforms can change their settings to opt in to political content recommendations.
It’s hard to become a “Twitter killer”
For now, Threads is still content with attracting internet celebrities, creators and entertainers.Mosseri said he doesn't expect Threads to completely replace X. This could make the social media market even more fragmented than before, forcing people to use multiple networks to find the same audiences and content they once could find on X.
But Anil Dash, a software executive who builds developer tools for social media, believes the lack of a single "Twitter killer" could be beneficial to the entire social media ecosystem.
"You can't open a fast-food restaurant and make something healthier than McDonald's," he said. "You do that by offering a lot of different options, including some interesting local restaurants and good ingredients. The same goes for the tech industry, with a mix of a lot of different options, some healthier, some more mom-and-pop."