Threads Makes A Fashionable Debut

We took a week off from this newsletter to steal a little vacay time and look at what happened! Meta, after losing billions of dollars (not to mention goodwill) on its Metaverse dreams, hits it big with something refreshingly simple and a lot less costly to develop. Threads, Meta’s new Twitter-like text-based service, appeared at precisely the right moment, and if Meta is smart, it’ll make posting to FB, Insta and Threads as easy as posting once.?

Threads had a trifecta moment.? Here’s why:

• Twitter is a Mess: Twitter’s been trying to staunch its bleeding with a whirlwind of absurd tactics, from blue checkmarks to limiting the number of tweets you can view each day. The rules of engagement change faster than when you are playing Monopoly with a ten-year-old.?
• People Wanted to Quit: Because of its toxicity and vitriol, Twitter is like watching a scary movie.. You want to, but can’t look away. People want alternatives, but Mastodon and the 60+ other new Twitter-like social media channels have not gained much traction.?
• An Installed Base: Because it’s built on Instagram, Threads has an immediate audience of a billion subscribers and you already have plenty of friends to engage with.?

Threads even bypassed ChatGTP in terms of adoption rate. It boasted 5 million sign-ups in the first 4 hours after the service went live. In its first 48 hours and surpassed 70 million sign-ups by the following morning, rattling Twitter enough to threaten legal action against Meta.

Early Threaders laud it for being easy to use, (you download the app and attach it to your Instagram account), and friendly (though it’s hard to imagine that the mean-spirited and disinformers are going to stay away for long).

Our guess is that the novelty will wear off and personal identity and social media ills will plague Threads like any other platform. But, for this one brief moment, Threads is enjoying Camelot status. It could be that Threads remains focused on friends, co-workers, and shared interests as opposed to Twitter, which has become a quagmire. But, doubtful.

We’d also be surprised in the FTC ?didn’t scrutinize Threads for anti-competitive practices. After all, owning WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads gives them way too much skin in the social game. Zuckerberg came out of this found looking like a hero (an interesting role reversal) but the round is far from over.