What's Brown And Sticky?

The obvious answer to this ‘dad joke' a stick, but now that I’ve your attention, let’s weave this into a post about threads.

Weave, Threads by Meta - another dad joke, ok, no more, I promise!

What does stickiness have to do with threads? In the first 48 hours of the launch, Meta was keen to shout about the 70+ million people who had signed up. A massive testimony to the seamless onboarding of users from its sister app Instagram.

However, this is a vanity metric. Let me explain.

70 million people may have signed up, but what happens if they only use it once or twice before being cast into the graveyard of unused apps?

The number could be 200 million signups. If all they are is signups, and it doesn’t translate to regular use, what difference does that number make?

Headline-grabbing, yes, a great measure of usage, nope.

What instead matters is how many of those users return to the app daily, weekly or monthly, often referred to as DAU, WAU or MAU (AU stands for active users, I’m sure you can work out the rest ??).

The stickier the app, the more they will return.

Why is this important?

Vanity metrics often look great - that’s what they are intended to do. However, the value they bring is limited at best.

Look below the covers; the data may tell a very different story. Only by appreciating this, can you instigate product growth how you want.

The legal wagons have already started to turn, with reports of Twitter looking to sue Meta. Whether Twitter has a leg to stand on will no doubt come out in the wash, if it goes to trial (very unlikely).

What is clear is that Meta saw an opportunity with gap that is no longer being filled due to the changes implemented by Elon Musk at Twitter . The number of registered Twitter users may have remained the same in the last 12 months (or even grown). However, did their MAU increase following the most recent shift to reducing the number of tweets that can be viewed per day?

It's highly unlikely.

If you are wondering whether I have joined threads after all of this, the answer is yes. Shameless plug, you can ‘follow me’ (is that the correct term) at https://www.threads.net/@jeisaacs