Threads, Meta’s ‘Twitter killer’, finds its people

[SAN FRANCISCO] After Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and turned it into X, Meta created a rival social network called Threads. It immediately overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the app that reached 100 million sign-ups the fastest.

Since then, Meta and the rest of Silicon Valley have shifted away from social media to focus on artificial intelligence. Threads lost the spotlight.

Even so, the platform never stopped growing. Last month, Meta said Threads had amassed 500 million monthly users, a milestone that makes it as popular as Musk’s X.

Threads now increasingly resembles the social message board Reddit, as well as X. Users gravitate to specific communities on the platform, rather than a feed of news, to discuss television episodes, game recaps, celebrity gossip and current events.

Among the most popular topics are K-pop, the US’ Women’s National Basketball Association, dating, dramedy books and television shows such as Heated Rivalry.

Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, has nurtured Threads by positioning it as a conversational space where news and politics are discussed but are not the main draws.

The company has built features around the ways that people use the text-based app, such as dedicated sections for communities, rewarding top posters with badges, and letting people customise their own algorithms.

Connor Hayes, the head of Threads, said the platform had grown with a guiding principle: “Follow the intent of users.” It has set a goal of reaching one billion users, he added.

“The way that we describe what success looks like is we want to be the largest and best platform for public conversation,” Hayes, 37, said in an interview.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, has tempered expectations for Threads, saying it could be “a fifth great app in the family of apps” behind Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger.

On a recent call with investors, he mentioned AI 49 times. He mentioned Threads twice.

Threads is “not a massive project”, he said in July 2023. “Over time, you should expect that we’re going to focus on AI and the metaverse.”

Even so, Melissa Otto, head of research at S&P Global Visible Alpha, said Threads had become an interesting story for Meta that showed momentum and growth.

“It’s probably a slow build compared to the magnitude and scale of their other applications, but the potential is there,” she said. NYTIMES