Instagram’s Threads has arrived like a hurricane in the digital landscape, wreaking havoc on its competition, and decimating previous records, as it brought together a whopping 100 million users within five short days of its launch.
Porting users over from Instagram automatically didn’t hurt.
This so-called “Twitter-slayer” outpaced the growth charts of notable platforms such as AI tool ChatGPT, TikTok, and even Instagram itself. It took ChatGPT a languorous two months, TikTok a seemingly infinite nine months, and Instagram an agonizing two and a half years to rack up the same user base that Threads garnered in less than a week.
Emerging from the fertile digital ground of Apple and Android app stores on Wednesday, July 5, Threads spread its roots across 100 nations faster than wildfire. Its growth hasn’t taken root in European soil yet, thanks to the thorny vines of the European Union’s data privacy legislation that Meta Inc, the parent company, has yet to decipher.
Meanwhile, Twitter, once a giant in the digital realm, now stands in the shadow of the burgeoning Threads, its traffic seemingly caught in quicksand. While still boasting around 200 million regular users, Twitter appears to be floundering under the stewardship of SpaceX and Tesla overlord, Elon Musk. His reign has seen multiple technical glitches, mass layoffs, and a surge in controversial policies, all of which have resulted in a steady outflow of users.
Twitter’s descent is being closely monitored, with Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince, posting a somber graph on Twitter depicting its steady fall from grace. While many platforms have tried to seize the opportunity presented by Twitter’s plight, most are unable to match the required scale and momentum. Threads, however, has the advantage of its symbiotic relationship with Instagram, a platform boasting a user base of over a billion.
Online data firm Quiver Quantitative noted that Threads breezed past the 100 million users mark at the crack of dawn on Monday (0300 EST). Other sources concurred, basing their estimates on the ‘badges’ proudly displayed by Instagram users who had downloaded Threads.
The arena of digital warfare isn’t just confined to growth statistics. Musk has accused Meta of pilfering trade secrets and intellectual property, an allegation which Meta, also parent to Facebook and WhatsApp, has dismissed with an air of nonchalance.
Amidst this digital tumult, there is a rivalry brewing between Musk and Meta’s mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg. A parody account of Musk, which has been throwing digital punches at Threads, also jumped into the fray by christening Zuckerberg as ‘lizard boy’. This nickname triggered a series of amusing exchanges between the two tech titans, with the parody account proposing a cage fight for control of each other’s social platforms for 24 hours.
The identity of the parody account’s owner remains shrouded in mystery, adding a layer of intrigue to this already enticing narrative. However, Musk’s own tweets about Zuckerberg have been quite similar, leaving one to wonder if the parody account is his digital doppelganger.
Last but not least, in a climactic twist worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, Zuckerberg broke his decade-long Twitter silence to welcome Threads with a Spider-Man meme. So, as we watch this drama unfold, the only question left to ask is – who will have the last laugh in this epic saga of the digital domain?