Without journalism, Twitter clone sees attraction drop 70% – 07/23/2023 – Nelson de Sá

In the Wall Street Journal, “Threads is losing its appeal,” with active users down 70% to 13 million from its peak on July 7, two days after launch. According to consultancy Sensor Tower, the average time spent on the American app also dropped, from 19 minutes a day to 4.

On competitor Twitter, the numbers “remain stabilized” at 200 million active users and 30 minutes.

The newspaper lists reasons for the drop, such as that Threads “may seem monotonous” because the profiles do not post frequently and because “brand profiles have prevailed”. More: he “does not encourage news”, journalism.

News and politics, justified an executive to the website The Verge (above), “are not worth the risk of scrutiny and negativity”. Along the same lines, via Reuters, another executive promised to rescue the tags used on Twitter, until Elon Musk bought them, to reduce the reach of Chinese and Russian profiles.

According to the Financial Times, Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to “do nothing to encourage” news on Threads is part of the strategy to “avoid the newspaper industry”, amid laws to pay for content in countries like Canada.

In reaction to the numbers, Musk has been tweeting that the use of Twitter grew 3.5% and “this platform aspires to be the best (or the least bad) source of truth”. Or, “Frankly, I love the negative feedback on this platform, much preferable to any censorship department“.

MUSK VS. MURDOCH

The WSJ also reports that former Fox News star Tucker Carlson “is creating a new media company” that will use Twitter “as its backbone” — with shorter versions of the videos that, on their own website, will charge a subscription fee. According to CNBC, the company has already signed an advertising contract with the commerce app PublicSq.

Jesse Watters, chosen to replace Carlson on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, debuted last week ahead of competitors from MSNBC and CNN, according to the Deadline website, but “there is still no verdict on reaching the audience” of his predecessor.

BEZOS TO THE RESCUE

The New York Times publishes that Jeff Bezos, from Amazon, ten years after buying the Washington Post for US$ 250 million, returned to “pay attention”, listening to professionals and changing executives. WaPo, according to competitor NYT, projects a loss of US$ 100 million this year.

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