With more than 30 million downloads in the first hours of its release since Wednesday, Threads, Meta’s new social network could become the biggest threat to Twitter, an application that since it was bought by Elon Musk at the end of last year has become chaotic.
It is not the first time that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger parent company, owned by Mark Zuckerberg) it takes advantage of the successful strategies of other social networks by copying their content: in 2016, Instagram launched Stories to compete with Snapchat, and in 2020 Instagram announced Reels, a short-form video feature that battles with TikTok.
Nicknamed by the American media “Twitter killer” (Twitter killer)Threads shoots at the network of the little bird created in 2006 from its very name, since that worda in English means “threads” and is part of its own vocabulary.
there should be an app
of conversations
with more than 1 billion users. Twitter has had the opportunity, but
he hasn’t made it
Upon launch, tycoon Elon Musk, owner of other companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, Through his lawyer, he threatened to sue Meta due to the similarity between the applications.
His lawyer accused the company of “unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
In a letter, he assures that Meta hired dozens of examples of Musk’s company who “had and continued to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other confidential information.”
For her part, the executive director of Twitter, Linda Yaccarino, said yesterday that her social network can be “imitated” but never “duplicated.” Yaccarino wrote to her followers in a tweet: “You created the Twitter community. That is irreplaceable. This is your public square. We are often imitated, but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”
The truth is that this latest move by Zuckerberg against Musk further enhanced the rivalry between the two billionaires, who even agreed to meet for a body-fight inside a cage.
“Does anyone think this can get bigger than Twitter?” MMA fighter Mike Davis asked on Threads, to which Meta president Mark Zuckerberg replied: “Hopefully we’ll make it. ”.
First post in Threads
“It will take some time, but I think there should be a public chat app with over 1 billion people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this, but has not succeeded, “added the founder of Facebook.
Unlike other Twitter competitors, Meta has a good user base. According to its 2022 data, Instagram has 2,000 million monthly active users worldwide and Facebook with 2,960. In addition, Instagram, along with TikTok, is one of the favorite social networks among the youngest.
It is also no coincidence that the tech giant has launched its new social network now, as since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter at the end of last year, this social network, which is mainly used by politicians and journalists, has experienced numerous technical problems. , removed the old verification method, has lost much of its payroll and has come under fire for the type of divisive content it promotes.
“Twitter is still the best place for real-time updates, but its cracks have been showing for some time beyond the Musk purchase, and this could be the right time for Meta to jump in,” said Daniel Newman, chief executive officer. from Futurum Group, a research firm and advisory firm, to The Wall Street Journal. However, experts point out that switching from one network to another will not happen overnight, it will take time.
a simple view, Threads looks like a copy of Twitter where there are photos, videos of up to 5 minutes and post texts of up to 500 charactersand you can interact with them in three ways: liking, reposting, and commenting.
Even Zuckerberg himself acknowledged how much the two apps are similar when tweeting. One of the benefits of Threads is that there will be no limit to the number of posts users can see on Threads, one of the key differentiators between the two apps after Musk announced (and then teased) the move last weekend. . for now, the app only works on cell phones and is available in 100 countries, but none in the European Union.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and Efe
