Thread’s app of Meta with format similar to twitter was launched Wednesday evening. It is easily most potent challenge to twitter after takeover by Elon Musk. Just news about future launch of Threads was enough to get a cage fight to be held in future between Meta CEO Zuck and twitter owner Musk fixed.

Salient features of Threads  

• Threads now live on Apple’s app store will be connected to a user’s Instagram account. It will provide a real-time platform just like twitter, a microblogging platform that affords users the convenience to publish text posts of up to 500 characters.
• Threads app will support photos and videos of length five minutes or less.
• Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has called volatility and unpredictability of twitter under Musk provider of opportunity to Meta to compete with twitter. Many decisions taken by twitter after Musk took over have not panned out well.
• Threads is already available on Android and iOS in more than 100 countries although not in EU due to regulatory concerns.

Backdrop for the launch of Threads

Meta’s move to create a potent and direct competitor of twitter seems an opportunistic one with rocky times for twitter under Musk in the backdrop. Many recent decisions of Musk owned twitter have not panned out well and have not gone down well with the users of the twitter platform. Making twitter blue subscription paid was one such decision. A recent unpopular decision has been temporary restriction on number of tweets a user can read daily. New unverified account holders were hit the hardest and could read only 300 tweets. Some competitors got attention amid controversies around twitter but none was backed by a big company like Meta.

Built-in user base of Instagram to benefit Threads immensely     

Built-in user base and ad apparatus at the disposal of Instagram can siphon off ad dollars from struggling twitter. Users can login to Threads through their Instagram account and alternatively can also use Threads as a standalone app. Instagram users are getting the convenience to follow the Thread accounts connected to twitter accounts they follow. This may provide followers to users instantly. Stock market also reacted well to the impending launch of Threads and Meta stocks closed up 3% on Wednesday ahead of the launch. It is not without reason that news of impending launch of Threads got cage fight fixed between Musk and Zuck.