What’s the fastest way to grow a new social network? It turns out converting your existing 1 billion+ users over to the new thing isn’t a bad start.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that the company’s new Threads service has crossed 100 million users in its first five days. The new Twitter competitor piggybacks on Instagram to simplify account creation and connect who you follow.
How precedented is 100 million users in less than a week?
Back in February, ChatGPT set a new record for the fastest-growing consumer application after crossing the 100 million threshold within two months of launching.
“In 20 years following the internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,” a UBS analyst wrote at the time.
For comparison, Instagram reached the same milestone after two and a half years about a decade ago.
The landscape is obviously different in this decade. TikTok only took nine months to hit 100 million users. But the appetite for a more mainstream alternative to Twitter is especially strong right now.
Still, virtually no one saw the immediate success of Threads coming. Just a month ago, I thought Instagram’s “Project 92” app just looked like the comments section from Instagram.
Top comment by Tech_Enthusiast
While 100 million users in a few days is somewhat impressive, I'm taking it with a grain of salt. Instagram already has 2.35 BILLION monthly active users; having 4.25% of people go through like 5 clicks to use their existing account to sign-in to your connected app sounds reasonable to me.
I also thought it was a no-brainer move that let Meta take advantage of the ActivityPub/Fediverse movement. Now it seems like Meta could have never promised to support interfacing with Mastodon and other federated Twitter alternatives.
Of course, the next challenge for the folks at Instagram is to make Threads stick. The 1.0 version of the app is especially bare bones. It’s also easier to have users sign up than it is to have users stick around and engage.
Apple has joined the fray on Threads, though, which signals this thing might be more than a small tight knit community.
Threads is available everywhere but the EU via the App Store. Follow 9to5Mac and company here.
More
- Threads now available to download: Meta’s new microblogging
- 10 million join Threads in under 10 hours, boosted by Instagram integration
- Threads crashing when you try to post a photo? There’s a workaround
- Twitter spooked by Threads, threatens to sue Meta for hiring employees after Musk fired everyone
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