2023-07-29 15:58:21
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Threads is struggling to retain users
Article informationAuthor, Tom SingletonRole, technology reporter – BBC News
8 minutes ago
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the company’s new social networking platform, Threads, has lost more than half of its users.
The competing platform for Twitter had increased the number of its users to more than 100 million users within five days of its launch earlier this month.
But Zuckerberg admitted those numbers have now fallen.
“If you have more than 100 million people registered on the platform, ideally it would be great if all or even half of them stayed on the platform. We’re not there yet,” he said.
Zuckerberg – whose comments came in a call to employees, heard by Archyde.com news agency – described the situation as “normal”. He said he expected the user retention rate to improve as new features were added to the app.
Threads was criticized for its limited capabilities when it was launched.
Since then, Meta has added new features, such as separate “following” and “just for you” content, and increased the scope for translating posts into different languages.
The company’s product manager, Chris Cox, told employees that the company is now focused on adding more “retention-driven attractions” in order to attract people back to the platform.
He gave an example of this by “making sure that people on Instagram can see important content on Threads”.
The two platforms are, in fact, linked. In order to register on the Threads platform, users must have an Instagram account.
Zuckerberg also updated employees on the company’s big bet on the yet-to-be-created world of virtual reality called the Metaverse.
He said work on augmented and virtual reality technology is not “enormously ahead of schedule, but it’s on the right track,” adding that he doesn’t expect it to become mainstream until the next decade.
The prediction may reinforce concerns that Meta has devoted so much time and money to the Metaverse that its Reality Labs division, which makes virtual reality headsets and other products, is racking up billions of dollars in losses.
Despite this, the company as a whole is still doing well financially – it announced this week that it made a profit of $7.79 billion in the last quarter.
Zuckerberg also touched on a headline-grabbing issue of his proposed cage fight with fellow tech giant Elon Musk.
The two men had indicated in June that they were excited regarding the fight, even going so far as to suggest a venue for the fight in Las Vegas.
But when asked regarding the fight during his call with his staff, Zuckerberg said he was “not sure if it would happen.”
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