Twitter’s Rival Threads Launched

Threads was launched on July 5th, 2023, and became publicly available starting July 6th, 2023. This app is run by Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta. Threads was created as a “friendly” rival to Twitter, owned by Elon Musk. The application works on both Android and Apple’s iOS systems and has been launched in 100 countries so far. 

Since the time Elon Musk gained ownership of Twitter in October 2022, he has been making changes to the features of the app. Some of these changes did not sit well with the users, who sought out alternate social media platforms. Services like Tumblr and Mastodon have since seen a hike in their number of users.

It is safe to say that Meta saw the opportunity and did not let it pass. Since January 2023, Meta has been working on developing an app that could compete with Twitter and potentially surpass it in terms of user preference. This led to the creation of Threads, which is similar to both Instagram and Twitter. On Threads, a user can post texts containing up to 500 characters as opposed to 200 characters on Twitter. At the same time, users can upload 5-minute-long videos.

Over two million users have joined Threads within hours of its release, including popular personalities such as Bill Gates, Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Gordon Ramsay and more. As of now, over 55 million people have joined Threads.