Threads is tech giant Meta’s latest salvo to take on Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg’s new platform that aims to rival the micro-blogging platform owned by Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder.
Threads saw 10 million sign ups within just seven hours of launch today.
“Threads just passed 2 million sign ups in the first two hours,” Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg posted earlier. “Just passed 5 million sign ups in the first four hours…,” he later posted in another update. The number kept climbing to hit the 7-million mark.
What is Threads?
Both content creators and casual users can use the platform for real-time updates and public discussions.
The official app description says, “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”
In a blogpost, Meta said Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos and their vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text.
Responding to a question on whether Threads can become bigger than Twitter, Zuckerberg said, “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”
Zuckerberg has earlier introduced Threads as an “open and friendly public space for conversation”. He added that the idea is to “take the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience”.