Stuck between Twitter and Instagram, Threads searches for its identity

2023-07-23 21:26:06

“Threads still has a lot to prove,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. The application “cannot survive in the long term by being just an alternative to Twitter or an extension of Instagram”.

More than 100 million accounts were created on Threads in just five days following it went live on July 5, thanks in part to a super simple registration from Instagram.

But user activity halved in a week, according to marketing firm Similarweb.

Daily active users jumped from 49 million to some 23 million between July 7 and July 14 on Android smartphones, according to the company. And engagement — the average time spent on an app — dropped from 21 minutes to 6 minutes over the same period in the United States.

“It was clever to offer Threads via Instagram to immediately get signups off the ground. And the timing was right given the current frustrations on Twitter, ”said Jasmine Enberg.

“But Meta still has a long way to go to keep users’ attention, creating an identity, adding tools, including some basic functionality. »

— Jasmine Enberg

“Instagram’s text chat app,” as Threads describes itself, is a lot like early Twitter. It is currently not possible to send private messages to users or to search content.

“I loved Twitter”

“It’s a bit rudimentary, but it’s good that the boss of Instagram is transparent regarding what is missing and what they will add”, notes Lauren Brose, marketing director in a start-up.

This New Yorker joined Threads “out of curiosity”, via the notification she had received on Instagram. She has since closed her Twitter account.

“A year ago, I loved Twitter. It was a place where very educated people gave information and comments. […] And the platform was successful in encouraging conversations from both sides,” she recalls.

“But since Elon Musk took over, the environment has completely changed. The contents interest me much less. »

—Lauren Brose

The Tesla boss bought Twitter last October, and many of his decisions have largely displeased users and advertisers alike, from firing nearly all of the content moderation teams to turning account verification into a paid service.

Threads was activated just following a final affront, when the billionaire announced the establishment of a limit on the number of messages that can be consulted per account and per day.

As the world’s number two in online , Meta “has the user targeting and content moderation tools” that brands love, says Jasmine Enberg.

“Threads therefore represents an alternative to Twitter for advertisers too”, even if for the moment there is no on the network.

“Added Value”

Will the latest addition to the Californian group complete Twitter?

“No,” responds investor Jeremiah Owyang categorically.

“Twitter remains dominant,” he explains, thanks in particular to the media and journalists, long-time followers.

“Threads is too late,” he continues, as many leaked users have embraced alternatives like Mastodon, a network of communities, or Bluesky, the app created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which is still in the rollout phase.

The new platform also suffers from its absence in Europe. Meta delayed its release in this huge market for regulatory reasons.

Jeremiah Owyang also doubts that Threads benefits in the long term from its birth in the bosom of Instagram, because the text and the image do not necessarily attract the same audiences. “I don’t want to see the written messages of people I follow on Instagram,” he remarks.

In an interview with the Hard Fork podcast, Adam Mosseri, the boss of the two apps, said he hoped Threads would focus “on topics that are already strong on Instagram, like sports, music, fashion, art.”

As for news and politics, at the heart of Twitter’s success, they are “inevitable”, but “we will not do anything to encourage them”, he asserted.

It is therefore difficult, at this stage, to imagine how Threads might replace Twitter, or what need it can meet.

“This is the main question that Meta must answer,” notes Jasmine Enberg. “What is the added value of Threads? »

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