Threads: The Rising Star in Social Media with 100M Users, As Revealed by Zuckerberg

In a recent Q3 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, threw light on the growing success of Threads, a Twitter-like app. Barely three months into its existence, the application has garnered an impressive user base of nearly 100 million monthly activities, according to Zuckerberg. This promising start indicates a potential for the app to significantly expand its community in the future. Zuckerberg’s optimism for Threads extends to the vision of it becoming a billion-user platform for public conversations that are inherently more positive.

The main part revolves around the comparative analysis between the growing popularity of Threads and the relatively stagnating user base of Twitter, now renamed as 'X'. As per official reports, X currently boasts 253 million daily active and 550 million monthly active users. However, these figures contradict the results of a third-party analysis by Apptopia that suggests a decline in X's daily active users to approximately 121 million. Factoring in variations between daily and monthly active users in other social apps, Apptopia’s data indicates that X might have around 223 million monthly active, which is significantly lower than the company’s self-reported figure.

Meanwhile, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has echoed Zuckerberg’s positive forecast for Threads. Despite acknowledging the need for sustained effort and caution against overconfidence, Mosseri expressed hope for the app's future. Among the key developments he outlined were the expansion of Threads’ support for Europe, early Fediverse progress, and better Instagram integrations. The app’s download rate has also experienced a boost due to changes in X's link preview display and the recent Israel war, which drove users to seek real-time updates.

X’s new approach to content moderation and changes to content display have been critiqued by users. Concerns over increased mis- and disinformation due to the shift to crowd-sourced fact-checking and the prioritization of paying users in content display have left many regular readers disgruntled. This, coupled with Elon Musk’s continuous criticism of journalists and mainstream media publications, has created a window of opportunity for Threads, with influential users seeking alternatives to X.

In conclusion, the rise of Threads is an interesting development in the social media landscape. With already 100 million users, even if the app manages to retain this user base, it will successfully establish its own niche in the market. As the tides of preference seem to be turning, it will be intriguing to observe the trajectory Threads carves for itself in the coming years.