2023-08-25 11:00:10
The storyline was so unlikely that even on a video streaming platform, it would have struggled to fit in. Saturday August 26, Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), was supposed to face Elon Musk, leader of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), in an iron cage for a fight of mixed martial arts (mixed martial arts, MMA), under the eyes of cameras around the world. In the real world, the fight will most certainly not take place, but the media impact of this challenge, fueled by Elon Musk’s provocations and outbidding, will have occupied social networks all summer.
However, behind what looks like a war of egos between Silicon Valley billionaires, there is an equally violent economic fight that has culminated in recent months. The crux of the battle revolves around how to attract, on their respective social networks, both millions of users and associated revenue, whether from subscription or .
While it was Elon Musk who first physically challenged Mr. Zuckerberg, it was Meta who lit the fuse by launching Threads, a new service, a direct competitor to Twitter. Like the latter, Threads is a text-first social network. It allows you to post messages up to 500 characters, to which you can add photos, videos.
Threads, an all-out attack on Twitter
Launched on July 6, this new service claims to distinguish itself from Twitter. In an interview with the American site The Verge on July 7, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri explains that Threads’ ambition is “to create a public square for communities on Instagram who have never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) who are interested in a less angry place of conversation”. He specifies that nothing will be done to encourage people to talk regarding politics or current events.
The project is in fact akin to a full-scale attack on Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg himself did not hesitate in July to challenge the social network to the bird by setting its goal for Threads to at least one billion users: “Twitter had the opportunity to do this but failed. We hope to achieve this. » Starting Threads may have fueled the Facebook founder’s hopes. In five days, the service launched in forty countries – but not in Europe – has attracted 100 million users, while Twitter has 540 million according to Elon Musk. A kickoff brilliant enough to worry the boss of Tesla, whose arrival at the head of Twitter has done damage.
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