Threads v Twitter — The Ultimate Social Media Rivalry?
Have you heard of Threads, the new social media that’s said to put Twitter out of business?
Meta launched its new social network — Threads — on the night of 5 July and it was much anticipated.
The app is a text-based network to share thoughts and join public conversations. Does it ring a bell? Yes! It’s the same as Twitter. Two social media empires are facing up to each other and are led by two of the richest men in the world. One question remains to be answered : Who will win the social media war?
With three out of the top 5 social media apps according to their number of monthly active users, Zuckerberg has dominated the social media landscape for over 10 years. Zuckerberg is now aiming for another app to be in the top 5 by capitalizing on the downfall of his bitterest rival: Twitter.
Twitter has been the centre of many controversies recently. 80% of the 8000 employees Musk had inherited from the purchase of Twitter were laid off, certified accounts are given for money instead of recognition and top advertisers left the platform which led to the fleeing of 1 million users.
Threads could have better luck than its rivals at replacing Twitter. Although Mastodon gained 2 million users after the Twitter deal closed, it counted 61% fewer users just 8 months later. All the more, Meta has great experience in copying others’ work. Snapchat was the first example with its stories functionality being copied and Tik Tok faced the same fate as its business model became Instagram’s reels.
Threads lets you log in with your Instagram account and as 87% of Twitter users are also on Instagram, according to DataReportal, the switch is all the easier. This will also allow Threads to create well-targeted ads as it already has the data from Instagram, making it very appealing for brands.
Nonetheless, Threads also has its flaws, starting with the fact stated above. Only Instagram users can have a Threads account. This means that people who want to create an account at Threads may have to create an account on two platforms. The two apps share their data which gives Meta even more information about the user and thus increases the risk of data leakage. Also, Threads does not allow the user to navigate the app by searching for a subject like Twitter does with hashtags.
And the biggest flaw of the app, however, is that it is not available in Europe. Europe is very less flexible in the handling of data. As a reminder, the European Union created the GDPR law in 2018. This law governs the way companies handle data, process it and store it. The way Threads uses data currently is a big problem to the EU. The fact that Meta is pushing users to use only its apps also goes against the fight for fair competition. As a result, Meta decided to delay its launch in Europe, which is likely to decrease European users’ interest in the app.
Today, Threads has over 100 million users and big celebrities who were not active on Twitter quickly joined Threads, including Selena Gomez and Kim Kardashian.
Are you intending to join the platform or are you already there? If the choice is still not clear for you, you can always wait for the winner of the boxing match between Zuckerberg and Musk and choose the app of the winner!
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminating the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
