Was it just a momentary fever? Threads, Meta’s social network that at the beginning of July was presented as an alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X), is facing its first growth crisis. After launching on July 6, the younger sister network of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp amassed more than 100 million users in just five days. However, after three weeks, the number of active users has dropped to less than half, announced on Friday the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg.
In a meeting with company employees – the one the agency Reuters had access – Zuckerberg downplayed it and said that the situation is “normal”, and that user retention will be greater as new features are added to the application.
Created with the declared objective of reaching a billion users, taking advantage of the integration with Instagram, which has two billion users, Threads replicates several functionalities and dynamics of the rival Twitter: it is a network centered on short text messages (although also allow the sharing of images and videos) distributed by two feeds (one with just the accounts followed by the user, the other with an algorithmic selection of relevant or viral content), with each message being “liked”, commented on or shared, just like on Twitter.
The similarities between the two networks have motivated jokes Internet users and criticisms about the lack of innovations in the Meta proposal.
On the other side of the barricade is X, the former Twitter, which, unlike Meta, is not experiencing a moment of financial health. Controlled since 2022 by the multimillionaire Elon Musk, the social network has since been involved in numerous controversies, in the image of its owner: among other controversies, it is accused of amplifying hate speech, misinformation and far-right propaganda (a common accusation other platforms, such as Meta), replaced a consolidated identity verification system with another that only requires payment of a monthly fee, and operated a brand change that was not very popular among its users.
In the meantime, it has suffered technical problems in line with the impulsiveness with which Musk enacts changes to the network that are not always implemented effectively by a contingent of engineers reduced by successive waves of layoffs.
Even so, it is on X that many politicians, businessmen and other personalities continue to communicate with their followers. And, despite the fact that X has a problem with false account misinformation, it is still there that major news events continue to be followed by millions of users every minute, as is the case of the war in Ukraine.
Between debate access and the “friendly” place
For now, the path for Threads to dethrone the old Twitter in this segment of social networks does not look easy. Despite the change of name, icon, verified account rules, and even the display of contents, X remains a space for debate on current affairs, facilitated by the possibility of searching for messages and aggregating contents with hashtagstwo features Threads currently lacks.
Threads, in turn, assumes that it does not privilege the news and political component and that it is committed mainly to creating a “friendly” environment of interaction, as said by the “father” of Threads, and head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri. As he argued in The Guardian the academic Siva Vaidhyanathanspecialist in social networks and social communication, only X itself can destroy itself – due to harmful decisions by Elon Musk, not competition from a rival.
Threads outside the EU, but Meta maintains financial health
Meanwhile, Threads remains officially unavailable in European Union (EU) countries, by Meta’s own decision, given the predictable incompatibility of the application with EU privacy and data sharing rules. However, several European users have managed to access the new social network through download of the application from unofficial websites. that is, one round won by Musk, whose social network still has no direct competitor in Europe.
Despite the troubled start of Threads, below initial expectations, Meta continues to show financial health, having announced this week a profit of 7.79 billion dollars (about seven billion euros). On the other hand, the old Twitter is still far from financially viable, as its owner admits, despite having started to charge for many of its features.
Unfulfilled, in Meta, are also the ambitions around the metaverse. The virtual reality universe of Zuckerberg’s company has low usage rates, despite a multimillion investment in that technology. Quoted by BBCthe founder of Facebook admits that the bet should not reach a level of commercial viability during this decade.
2023-07-29 20:58:30
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