Mark Zuckerberg is amazed by the explosion of Threads

Threads is off to a strong start, with signups continuing to grow, thanks in part to Instagram’s massive user base. As of July 7, the platform had 70 million signups, a feat that even Mark Zuckerberg was surprised by. On Threads, he wrote that the number was “beyond our wildest expectations.”

Previously, The Verge reported that Threads users had posted more than 95 million posts and received more than 190 million likes. Meta has not released engagement figures on the platform.

Threads has seen rapid growth since its launch on July 6. (Photo: Digital Trends)

According to CNBC, Threads' explosive growth is thanks to its tie-in with the social network Instagram. Users can sign up for Threads using their existing Instagram account and retain followers.

Meta only needs a quarter of Instagram users to use Threads for the new platform to be as big as Twitter, which had nearly 238 million daily users as of summer 2022, said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Threads still has room to grow as it has not launched in Europe, where there are many regulatory complexities.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk appears to be growing concerned about his rival. His trusted lawyer, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta accusing the company of “unlawful misappropriation of trade secrets.” However, Andy Stone, Meta’s director of communications, denied the accusations and insisted that no one on the Threads engineering team was a former Twitter employee.

Still, growth alone isn’t enough to make Threads a Twitter replacement; it needs to show it can retain users. Twitter is used by many journalists, politicians, and academics to share breaking news. Threads, on the other hand, has a much wider audience due to its tie-in with Instagram. Meta is also looking to reduce the role of political content on Facebook. If this policy were to be applied to Threads, the app would be different from Twitter.

Meta needs to keep Threads interesting to maintain its momentum once the novelty wears off, Enberg says. There’s no evidence that people are using Threads to stay up to date on world news and events the way they do on Twitter. But Threads has one advantage: Twitter users are fed up with the constant chaos on the “bluebird,” Enberg says.

Many US politicians are on Threads. According to Axios, more than a quarter of the 535 members of Congress have accounts, not to mention Republican presidential candidates and top White House aides. Advertisers who have worked with Meta will also want to look for alternatives to Twitter, especially if they consider Threads safer for their brands. Instagram's community guidelines will apply to Threads.

(According to CNBC)

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