Threads turned one year old And even though she is still very tied to Instagram, she has reasons to celebrate. Meta’s platform was born as a competitor to Twitter and celebrated its first anniversary a few days ago. Currently the social network is trying to seduce its More than 170 million users to get them to spend more time on the app and undoubtedly fight for a larger share of the virtual ecosystem.
“Threads now has more than 175 million monthly active users. “What a year!” said Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, as he recognized Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram and Threads.
In July 2023, while many Users and advertisers abandoned Twitter – transformed into X by Elon Musk – Threads is off to an impressive start.
The application was downloaded over 100 million times within a few days, thanks in part to the simple registration on Instagram. However, User activity dropped quickly.
“The 175 million is a high figure. But that does not necessarily reflect the number of people who use the service daily or the time they spend on it,” acknowledged Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at the consulting firm Emarketer, according to the international agency AFP, which made an assessment of the first year of the social network.
In an interview with Platformer Adam Mosseri admitted to feeling “proud” that all the measurements audiences, such as the time spent on the social network each day, progress “steadily”. However, he reiterated his ambition to “build the best platform for sharing ideas online”. “This means become bigger than X (exTwitter). It will take time but I will consider myself a failure if we don’t achieve it,” he said.
Resistance to Threads
In parallel, Social network X reached 600 million monthly users and 300 million daily users last May, according to Elon Musk. These figures raise doubts among analysts but show the not at all easy path that remains to be traveled to the social network of real-time conversations.
“When Threads was launched, X was struggling. “But it has held up surprisingly well,” said Debra Aho Williamson of Sonata Insights.
“Los Sports and political debates are still very active on X and, taking into account the Olympic Games, the European Championship and the US presidential elections – among other important events – X will probably continue to attract users,” he added in statements to the international news agency.
Unlike Twitter and X, Meta does not encourage the dissemination of political contentwhich can scare away some audiences. Political messages from accounts that users do not follow are therefore hidden by default.
“Take for example the conflict in Gaza. Do we really want to show people opinions “Very strong, pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, coming from an account they did not choose?” Adam Mosseri asked on Platformer.
This operation could “attract more attention”he acknowledged but considered that it was not worth it due to the “risks” and the potential “anger” that it could arouse among users.
The identity of Threads
Jasmine Enberg understands these arguments but stresses that Threads lacks “its own identity” making it an essential space for its users. The platform needs to “forge an identity” that it is not simply ‘not X’ or ‘not Twitter’, nor is it simply an extension of Instagram,” he explained.
So far, Adam Mosseri’s team focused on technical improvements to the social networkwhich does not yet include advertising and therefore does not generate income. To impose Threads, the American group is betting on cultural or sports debates.
“My daughters want me to mention that Taylor Swift is now on Threads“Mark Zuckerberg joked during a conference call to discuss Meta’s financial results.
This observation from Meta’s boss “clearly shows the need to position the app as culturally relevant,” Jasmine Enberg said. Ultimately, however, It is the users who shape the identity of a platform, the analyst explained.
For other users, The “Twitter of Instagram” just turned out to be a lot more user-friendly than Elon Musk’s platform. A CNN note at the end of 2022 showed that theHate speech had increased “dramatically” after the tycoon took over the company. This “worrying situation” was given by the cuts in content moderation staff that the company had.
At its launch, Threads benefited from the hectic context that Twitter was experiencing and remains the first alternative in the face of the discontent that Musk’s always controversial changes in plans can generate.
2024-07-13 08:00:00