Untangling the New Threads App

The new Twitter killer will have Zuck in stitches

Image: Midjourney

I’ve struggled for the words to describe how badly Elon Musk has fumbled the bag with Twitter. Today, I think I’ve found them — It’s gone so poorly that people are excited to join something created by Mark Zuckerberg. 

Meta’s Twitter clone, Threads, is officially out in the wild today. I’ve played around with the app for a few hours today. Honestly, it’s pretty slick. The design is clean, and there are some nice little features, like following people directly from the main feed. There’s a character limit of 500. Thank god for that. On the downside, the homepage is filled with algorithmically-recommended posts from around the network rather than your network. How very Meta. I also had to sign up for an Instagram account — which I can’t say I’m thrilled about — but for those who already have one, signing up is as simple as it gets. It also brings your Instagram audience across. That’s a huge pull. Nobody likes starting from zero. 

Being an almost identical copy, everything you’d expect to be here is here; likes, replies, retweets (reposts), the navigation bar at the bottom and verified ticks, organized in the same scrolling feed. In terms of innovation, it gets a big fat 0/10. I’ve previously berated Meta’s lack of innovation and reliance on copying a competitor’s features. On the whole, it’s been a failing strategy. I’ve even written as much when writing about the then-called Project 92, saying, 

Will Meta’s version of Twitter come to fruition? Probably. Meta has enough resources to pursue it. Will it work? Probably not, unless Twitter completely folds and the door swings open for someone to suck up the market.

But I think I was wrong with that judgment. The decision to clone is smart because it has eliminated almost all the friction. Users of Twitter will feel immediately at home, and with their audience already there with them (if they’d built one on Instagram), the transition will be seamless. The transitions to alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky are cumbersome, and the experience is less familiar once you're there. That has stemmed the exodus. Mastodon’s monthly active users flatlined around 2.5 million, while Bluesky only has around 180,000 (with a waitlist of around 2 million). 

Meta’s decision to recreate Twitter with Meta branding might just position them to sweep up the market. That should worry Musk a lot.

Threads does lack a lot of features. There are no DMs, no search, no hashtags and ironically, no threads (which, let’s be honest, should be called spools). That’s because the app was rushed out of the door to capitalize on Twitter’s meltdown over the weekend. It was the moment to pounce. It appears Meta called it right; there were over 10 million sign-ups in the first 7 hours alone. That number is now 30 million. Yes, that’s some way short of the 380 million using Twitter. But again, the decision to tie this directly to Instagram, an app with approximately 1.4 billion users, means there’s vast potential for growth. If even 30% of those on Instagram convert to Threads, Threads will become bigger than Twitter.

Zuckerberg’s target is lofty. In response to a post on his shiny new app, he wrote, “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.” It’s hard to rule it out. They’ve certainly got the financial muscle to push it; at the same, Twitter is seeing its runway shorten, with ad revenue decreasing and subscriptions to Blue failing to take off. There is one serious stumbling block; the app won’t launch in the EU anytime soon due to upcoming laws that will mean Meta has to sort out its privacy issues. That means a big chunk of potential users is off the table. 

The privacy point is important. Let’s not forget that Meta has a lot of baggage. The company has a questionable track record on moderation and a shocking track record on privacy. It seems in the initial flurry to join, users have conveniently forgotten that. Or have, at the very least, pushed it to the side. Is Threads really the lesser of two evils? I’m not so sure. As I joked in the opening, it does show how far Twitter is falling that a Meta-owned product has been so quickly embraced. 

Another thing worth considering is how Meta will monetize the app. It’s inevitable. Shareholders won’t allow Zuckerberg to build something that can’t be monetized to death. While the initial launch remains ad-free, it seems almost guaranteed that Meta will start deploying ads if the user base builds. It will be interesting to see what damage this will do to the user experience. The ad experience on Twitter is bottom-of-the-gutter stuff and one of the many reasons users are becoming disgruntled. 

The success of this app all depends on whether Threads can build on the initial hype. Every app that launches enjoys a honeymoon period, but then comes the drop offer and the hard work to win them back and grow. Will users keep coming back? Can Meta push out the missing features fast enough? Could they innovate *shocked gasps* some exciting features that provide more reasons for people to jump ship? 

Despite the hype, we'll likely never get that cage fight. The real battle will be between Musk-ified Twitter and Meta-vised Twitter. Meta has taken its shot, and the ball is back in Elon Musk’s court. If last weekend showed us anything, Musk’s leadership at Twitter was already becoming more irrational, more manic, and more divisive. And now he has Meta breathing down his neck. 

Meta might not have created a Twitter killer. But how Musk reacts over the next few months could well do the job for them.