The first 24hrs on Meta's Threads!

The long rumoured Meta rival to Twitter finally launched yesterday (6th July) and the early results are clear! This is the first real threat to Elon Musks $44bn acquisition of Twitter earlier this year and comes at a time when the platform has removed more free features and restricted usage for some users.

So why is Threads a real threat.

There have been challengers to the bird app in the past 12 months. Mastodon, Bluesky, Post are just a few. But the big advantage Threads has is that it is pushing invites to all of it's 2bn+ active users on Instagram. And Meta have made it super easy to port over existing followers from Instagram, which has created the level of virality we have witnessed in the past 24hrs! Endless notifications has created a hype cycle that has made Threads the fastest growing social media network of all time. (50m users in 24hrs!) That hype cycle has led to unprecedented levels of FOMO! And that's without the 330m active users in the EU!

So what's it actually like?

Well, in fairness to Meta, they have designed an aesthetically pleasing yet simple interface. Think early iterations of the Facebook wall with an addictive infinite scroll but with a 2023 design upgrade. For those users who were in on the action in the first 8 hrs (I was one of them) it felt organic and pure. No influencers peddling another product they have been asked to plug to their "followers", no snake oil sales people trying to sell the secrets to making 6 figures in 30 days, no trolling, no politics and interestingly, it appeared that the plethora of bot accounts selling bitcoin and Forex schemes seem to have not made the jump to the new platform. Could that be due to the fact that 3rd party tools to allow users to manage multiple profiles have not been given API access yet in v1? Is the EU location lockout telling in that bot farms have been unable to adapt quickly for them to make a difference in the first 24 hrs? Or a strategic play by msrs. Zuckerberg and Mosseri to deter fake accounts and trolls from coming to the latest shiny social media platform?

Of course you can have multiple profiles in Threads but it means you have to log in and log out endlessly between accounts. And automated posting via 3rd parties is not available yet which is why the first 24hrs saw major brands having "fun" and posting authentic and personable content. There was a distinct lack of the standard, formulaic content created by a team of strategists whose aim is to get you to see their content based on their latest algorithm hack and who salivate at the thought of millions of impressions.

So whats next?

Well, for starters, we are just over 24 hrs since the launch and this is still V1 but I suspect there is already a product roadmap in the offing! Although Zuck's has said that monetisation (ads) is unlikely until Threads passes 1bn active users, more than double that of Twitter. And when Threads does reach the 300m + active users Twitter currently has we'll see round 3 of the Musk v Zuckerberg battle!

Being part of the Meta group does pose some questions though in terms of competition and the power Meta will wield if they have multiple social platforms with 1bn + active daily users!

But for now the platform is here to stay and will continue to gain popularity over the next few weeks, even without the 300m Instagram users from the EU currently locked out by Meta due to concern on EU data laws due in 2024. Could the app reach 400m users by the end of July? It's certainly off to a good start and expect an explosive summer of "Social Media Wars"