• by Karlene Lukovitz , July 6, 2023

Threads, Meta’s rival to Twitter, attracted 10 million signups in the first seven hours after its launch on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on the new app.

Earlier, in his first Threads post, Zuckerberg wrote: "Let's do this. Welcome to Threads." He followed with another saying: “Glad you’re all here on day one. Let’s build something great together.”

Zuckerberg also took a shot at Twitter CEO Elon Musk by posting an illustration of a Spiderman-versus-Spiderman faceoff… on Twitter.

Threads was originally set to launch at 10 am on July 6, but the launch was moved up to 7 pm ET on July 5.

With the exception of Europe, the app is now accessible globally, in 100 countries, through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

While the app did not appear to feature any ads in its first hours, Meta has made no secret about its ambition to take advertising from Twitter. Twitter lost many major advertisers due to brand-safety concerns caused by Musk’s erratic policy changes and an upsurge of hate postings and misinformation on the platform since he acquired it last year.  

Brands including Netflix, Max, Billboard and NPR launched accounts within minutes of Threads’ official launch, according to Reuters.

Other immediate joiners included Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who played off Zuckerberg’s own statements about Meta’s intentions for Threads by writing: "May this platform have good vibes, strong community, excellent humor, and less harassment."

Meta also recruited social media influencers to get the word out, and sent a push notification when Threads went live to Instagram users who had pre-ordered the app on iOS.

The volume of initial signups spotlights the massive advantage represented by Instagram’s built-in, 2-billion monthly active user base.

Although Threads is technically a standalone app, Meta said it was designed to enable Instagram users to seamlessly transfer their personal details, followers and following lists to Threads, and use their existing Instagram credentials to sign into it.

Threads users can share their posts to Instagram, and vice-versa.

The app’s functionality closely resembles Twitter’s. Users can post messages of up to 500 characters and include photos, links and videos up to five minutes long. Users’ “threads” include their followers and recommended content.

But Meta has also included a variety of privacy and content-control features. In contrast to Twitter’s implementation of verifications only for paid Twitter Blue subscribers, users who have qualified for badges on Instagram also automatically get a badge on Threads, although they can choose to hide it. (Facebook badges are not, as of now, transferrable.)

Threads also lets users control who can “mention” them, and filter out replies based on specific words, as well as unfollow, block, restrict or report other users’ profiles. Blocks on an Instagram account are automatically applied to Threads, but users have the option of applying different privacy preferences to the two apps.

Initial complaints voiced by Threads users include its lack of a chronological, following-only feed, which leaves users “stuck with whatever the Threads algorithm decides to push their way,” noted Engadget. In addition, it lacks post editing, hashtags and account switching.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri replied through Threads posts that a following-only feature, post editing and account switching are all “on the list” of coming Threads features.

Meta has also confirmed that it plans to use the ActivityPub protocol to make Threads compatible with open, decentralized social networks like Mastodon (the so-called "fediverse"), so that Threads posts will be able to be plugged into those platforms. However, that interoperability is not yet ready. Twitter, meanwhile, is limiting free API access to third-party developers.

Also, Threads is currently mobile-only, read-only on browsers, with posting limited to the iOS and Android apps. Mosseri has yet to address the lack of a web version, points out Engadget.