Threads: platform grew faster than ChatGPT – 07/10/2023 – Tech

Threads, Meta’s app that rivals Twitter, surpassed 100 million users five days after its launch, the company’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday (10), dethroning ChatGPT as the online platform hit the mark faster.

Threads has been setting records for user growth since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities, politicians and other personalities joining the platform, which analysts see as the first serious threat to Elon Musk’s Twitter.

“This is mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even activated many promotions yet,” Zuckerberg said in a Threads post announcing the milestone.

The social network reached 100 million users much faster than OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, which became the fastest-growing consumer app in history in January, about two months after its launch, according to a UBS study.

Still, Threads has some ground to cover. Twitter had nearly 240 million daily active monetizable users as of July last year, according to the company’s last public disclosure prior to Musk’s acquisition.

Twitter responded to the arrival of Threads with a threat of legal action against Meta, alleging that the social media giant used its trade secrets and other sensitive information to create the app. That claim can be difficult to prove, say legal experts.

Threads bears a strong resemblance to Twitter, as do several other social media sites that have sprung up in recent months as users chafed under Musk’s management. The app allows posts of up to 500 characters and supports links, photos and videos of up to 5 minutes.

Threads, however, does not yet have a direct messaging function or a desktop version that certain users, such as enterprise organizations, depend on.

Currently, Threads also lacks hashtag and keyword research functions, limiting its appeal with advertisers and its usefulness as a place to follow events in real time, as users often do on Twitter.

Still, analysts said the turmoil on Twitter, including recently imposed limits on the number of tweets users can see, could help Threads attract both users and advertisers.

There are currently no ads on the Threads app, and Zuckerberg said the company will only think about monetization when there is a clear path to 1 billion users.