Why Threads Could Win Where Other Twitter Clones Couldn't Keep Up

Social media giant Meta launched Threads, a new platform that some experts told Newsweek has the potential to become Twitter's next top rival as it capitalizes on users who have been critical of Elon Musk's platform since he took over last October.

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday that Threads, which has a similar interface to Twitter, reached 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours of its launch on Wednesday. Threads users can write, repost, quote, and like posts the same way users can on Twitter. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include photographs, links, and videos up to five minutes long. A post on Threads can also be shared to other platforms through the messaging app.

Those who wish to sign up on Threads could use their Instagram account to log in to the new app by clicking "Log in with Instagram." The new social media platform launched by Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, allows users to share posts from Threads directly to Instagram stories. Additionally, verified accounts on Instagram are also automatically verified on Threads.

"The vision for Threads is to create an option and friendly public space for conversation," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post after its launch. "We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussing what's on your mind."

Could Threads Topple Twitter?

Threads was among the top free apps on Apple's app store, and it was a trending topic on Twitter being the subject of nearly 3 million tweets as of Thursday afternoon. Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino acknowledged Twitter's new rival and said that the Twitter community is "irreplaceable" and can't be "duplicated."

"We're often imitated – but the Twitter community can never be duplicated," she tweeted.

Meta wants to build a large user base for Threads, hoping that its over 2 billion global active Instagram users could join the new app, according to CNN. Twitter's active user base is around 250 million.

"It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it," Zuckerberg said in a Threads post, according to CNN. "Twitter has had the opportunity do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will."

Meanwhile, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that new social media platforms are challenged with maintaining their user base long-term rather than getting users to sign up.

Some think Threads has the potential to become an "actual legitimate competitor" to Twitter and other social media platforms that tried to dethrone Twitter such as BlueSky, Mastodon, and Truth Social—Donald Trump's social media platform. Its potential success mainly stems from the fact that it is backed by Meta, and, therefore, it is supported by a massive pre-existing social media user base, according to Luke Lintz, CEO of HighKey Enterprises, a management agency that helps brands explore growth opportunities across social media platforms.

"They [Threads] practically have unlimited funding, which is huge for a new social media application, because they're backed by Meta, which is a very big publicly traded company," Lintz told Newsweek, adding that this is a differentiating factor that makes it "very competitive with Twitter."

Meanwhile, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that Threads will fill a gap that Twitter has created by creating a shot messaging platform that anyone can publicly view even if they don't have an account.

"Threads also will make it easier for influencers and political figures who use multiple platforms by being interoperable—that is making it easier to post messages across multiple social media platforms," said Stromer-Galley.

The information studies professor also said, "Threads has the potential to replace Twitter in filling that need of timely, publicly accessible information. Plus, because Threads is tied to Instagram, which already has more than 40 percent of the American public using it, will give it a boost in users."

Stromer-Galley said that Twitter never had notable popularity in terms of registered users to begin with, adding that at its "heyday, only about 23 percent of Americans" were using the platform. It had a broad reach because it was publicly viewable and because politicians, celebrities, and news outlets heavily relied on it as it facilitated the exchange of information, especially around real-time events such as deadly hurricanes or emergency services, according to Stromer-Galley.

However, Twitter is now limiting the number of posts users can view, with Musk saying last weekend that "to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we've applied the following temporary limits: - Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day - Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day - New unverified accounts to 300/day."

Can Threads Succeed in the Long Run?

Threads has a massive chance to succeed over Truth Social, according to Lintz, partially because Donald Trump's platform is "one-sided and very conservative-leaning."

"Social media thrives off of controversy and basically conversation from different political views and different viewpoints where that same type of conversation doesn't happen on a platform like Truth Social because you just have every single person agreeing with one another and there's no arguments or debates," Lintz said.

Stromer-Galley said that Threads' long-term success depends on who takes up and uses the platform in these early days of its launch.

"The success of a platform relies on a number of factors: the users, current events, and the tools and features of the platform itself. Take Snapchat—they wanted to be broadly used, but it's never managed to catch on beyond their younger demographic. Part of the reason for that is the nature of the platform and its features. Older users didn't find the filters or the ephemeral nature of the messages to be that useful or appealing," she said.