Meta
has Elon Musk’s Twitter in its sights. And history suggests it might do better than many people think.
Facebook-parent
Meta Platforms
(ticker: META) is set to launch its Twitter rival app Threads on Thursday. The app is available for preorder on
Apple’s
iOS App Store. “Threads—Instagram’s text-based conversation app,” says the product description page. It “is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow.”
Meta shares rose 2.9% to $294.37 on Wednesday after the timing of the release was revealed.
The Threads launch coincides with new frustration among Twitter’s most active users after Twitter on Saturday started limiting the number of daily posts that its users can read. In a blog post on Tuesday, Twitter said that it has taken the “extreme measures” to remove spam and bots from the app, adding “effects on advertising have been minimal.”
The latest round of uncertainty under Musk’s leadership has—again—increased demand for Twitter alternatives.
And Meta may get its fair share of Twitter refugees, at least if history is any guide. When Facebook began in 2004, a social network called Friendster had a big lead in users. But Friendster eventually fell behind Facebook. And the reason wasn’t because Facebook had more features or better innovation. Rather, it simply worked. Friendster was earlier to market, but the service couldn’t scale and had significant glitches—similar to the technical issues that Twitter users have endured during Musk’s tenure.
On the other hand, Meta’s history of copying other apps has had inconsistent results. Its most significant success is Instagram Stories, which mimicked
Snap’s
Stories features. Meta’s TikTok clone Reels is lately getting some traction, but the jury is still out. Facebook also tried to copy Substack’s newsletter service with Bulletin in 2021, but that’s already been shut down.
This time, though, Facebook has a simple but important upper hand. The company has shown competence in app performance, robust infrastructure, and uptime and, of course, it has significant financial and technology resources. Some of the Twitter alternatives—including Bluesky and Mastodon—have already temporarily buckled under the pressure of Twitter users flocking to their platforms.
Threads is unlikely to have those issues, which bodes well for the microblogging platform’s success.
Write to Tae Kim at [email protected]
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