Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder and CEO of Meta, announced that Threads, a social media app launched as a rival to Twitter, gained five million sign-ups within its first four hours of operation. Zuckerberg revealed that his company aimed to attract users from Elon Musk’s troubled platform by offering longer posts. The Guardian UK reported that Meta moved up the app’s release 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 was freely accessible in 100 countries through the Apple and Google app stores, it faced regulatory concerns and would not be available in the European Union (EU).
Shortly after its launch, notable brands such as Billboard, HBO, NPR, and Netflix quickly created accounts on Threads. Meta mentioned that initial celebrity supporters included Shakira and Gordon Ramsay, and there were reports that Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama had also been approached. Users of Threads will need an Instagram account to log in and can choose to follow the same accounts they follow on Instagram if those accounts have joined the new app.
Visually, Threads closely resembles Twitter, although some terminology has been changed, such as retweets being called “reposts” and tweets being referred to as “threads.” Meta has a history of replicating features from rival products, as seen with the launch of Instagram’s Reels, which bears similarities to TikTok’s short-form videos.
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On Threads, users can create posts up to 500 characters long, compared to Twitter’s limit of 280 characters. Additionally, videos up to five minutes in length can be shared, and posts can be shared as links on other platforms. Users have options to unfollow, block, restrict, or report others, as well as filter out replies containing specific words.
In subsequent posts on Threads, Zuckerberg addressed the challenges and expressed his belief in the need for a public conversations app with over one billion users. He noted that Twitter had the opportunity but failed to achieve this, hoping that Meta would succeed.
Reactions to Threads’ debut ranged from cautious to enthusiastic, with many praising its user-friendly interface and some suggesting that Elon Musk should be concerned. Others highlighted the swift integration of the app with Instagram as evidence of Meta’s growing influence. Interestingly, much of the conversation surrounding Threads took place on Twitter, where the hashtag “Threads” was trending on Wednesday evening.
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