User traffic on Twitter has slowed since the launch of GoalThreads’ text-based platform, which has already surpassed 100 million subscriptions since its debut last week, according to a third party tracker.
Threads launched in the US on Wednesday and is being touted by Meta execs like Instagram boss Adam Mosseri as a more positive «public square» for communities «that never really embraced Twitter.» So far, users seem to be on board. CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying on Friday that the social media platform already had 70 million records.
“Way beyond our expectations,” Zuckerberg said in a post.
Twitter seems to have taken a hit. Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, shared a screenshot on Twitter on Sunday showing that traffic on the platform was «slumping.»
Twitter responded to CNBC’s request for comment with an automated response. Meta did not immediately respond.
Threads’ growth boom is helped by the fact that it is linked to an existing social network, Meta’s Instagram. Users can sign up with their existing Instagram handles and can keep some of their followers while others sign up to the app.
Threads reached the 100 million milestone even faster than OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT, which surpassed 100 million monthly users in two months.
The app still has a lot of room to grow, having not yet released in Europe, where Mosseri said there is still some regulatory complexity to navigate. If Threads can retain its user base, it could cement its position as a real competitor to Twitter, which reported nearly 238 million monetizable daily active users on its latest quarterly earnings report as a public company last summer.
twitter owner Elon Musk seems to have shown some concern for Threads, as his lawyer Alex Spiro wrote a letter to Meta accusing the company of «illegal misappropriation» of trade secrets.
Musk and Zuckerberg also fired over the weekend, as Zuckerberg mocked Musk’s tweeting style and Musk called Zuckerberg a derogatory name.