My First Week on Threads

By now, everyone who uses social media (and who doesn't?) has heard that Meta launched a new social platform on July 6th intended to compete with Twitter as the social water cooler, where users discuss anything and everything ranging from the news of the day to cute photos of cats on Saturday, also known as Caturday.

The appeal of Threads (and I must say, what a great name symbolizing threads of discussion!) was the ease of creating an account if you already had an Instagram account. According to CNBC, there were 100 million signups in the first five days, representing one of the fastest debuting apps of all time. However, according to data from SensorTower and Similarweb, the platform has seen dropoff in growth and engagement following the first week.

While the platform is not being promoted as the place to discuss news and politics, there is no doubt that users will. In fact, many hope that hate speech and misinformation will not appear on Threads.

According to Anthony Bartollacci, managing director of SensorTower, "The backing of Meta and the integration with Instagram likely gives Threads a much higher flood (of traffic) than other services, but it will need a more compelling value proposition than simply 'Twitter without Elon Musk.'"

According to David Webb, senior insights manager of Similarweb, "While there was intense interest in checking out the app initially, not every user has made a habit of visiting Threads as often as they might other social apps."

Lastly, according to Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, "Meta only needs 1 in 4 Instagram users to use Threads monthly for it to be as big as Twitter."

So, have you created an account, and what do you think of this new platform?

Check out my link: https://www.threads.net/@debbielaskeymba.


Image Credit: Threads/Meta.