Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg set out three years ago to build a Twitter competitor with 1 billion users. He's halfway there.
Threads, the short-form social network Zuckerberg launched in 2023 shortly after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now has 500 million monthly users, the company announced Tuesday. The app's daily active users have also increased from a year ago, according to an interview with Connor Hayes, head of Threads, who declined to share specifics. That runs counter to external estimates, which projected that Threads' user base was declining.
Zuckerberg created Threads to capitalize on Musk's chaotic Twitter takeover, betting that users who had stayed loyal to that service for years would be interested in a new platform. Threads has evolved in that time from an app that shied away from politics — a key to Twitter's cultural relevance — to one that Hayes hopes will be as culturally relevant as possible, even if that means politics is a central element for some users.
“On balance you should walk away from the app feeling good because you're informed,” Hayes said. The event that made Threads popular in Taiwan, for example, was an election, he added.
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Threads has grown steadily due in large part to its relationship with Meta's other popular apps, including Instagram. Users that scroll Instagram often come across Threads posts in their feed, and clicking on them redirects people into the Threads app.
Hayes said that more and more people are going directly to Threads instead of ending up there via one of the company's other popular products, a sign the app is becoming a destination and not just a place people stumble into.
Increasing relevance, of course, means attracting the high-profile and celebrity users who then bring their fans and followers along with them to a new platform. While Threads is already full of celebrities — filmmaker and New York Knicks die-hard fan Spike Lee was a prominent example over the past week — Hayes said there are still others the company is courting, with NBA star LeBron James at the top of his list.
Threads' popularity in Korea, where total app time spent increased more than 80% over the same time one year earlier, has helped lure one major user: BTS, the popular K-pop group, joined Threads over the weekend. The account amassed over 4.2 million followers in a few days.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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