All the noise that Threads created as a worthy opponent to Twitter is eroding. Especially because its parent, Zuckerberg himself agreed that it couldn’t retain more than half of its users. He does point out that despite the receding numbers, the outcome of threads was much better than the expectations of the executives. At the time of writing, even amidst these worries, measures were being taken to revive Threads. One of them is the plan to use Facebook and Instagram to propel ‘retention-driving hooks’.
When did you first hear of Threads? An Instagram meme. That is how I stumbled across ‘Threads’. A meme that read “You know you are getting too old when you don’t even attempt to find out what Threads are”. I may be too old, but two seconds later, I was firmly seated doing a PhD level research on the history, progression, and future of the Twitter Vs Threads controversy, on Quora (Quora never disappoints). Two weeks later, I am all for the hot gossip about how this standoff has spiraled into a new Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg brawl, mainly over a minimalist white ‘X’ on a black background that replaces Twitter’s blue bird logo.
Is Threads here to overthrow Twitter?
Twitter is not an app that needs a definition, Threads however is Meta’s social media app that is tied to Instagram and was launched on 5 July 2023. At its infant stage, the app was able to accumulate 30 million people in less than 24 hours after its launch. What made Threads’ headway less challenging was, according to Adam Mosseri, Twitter’s “volatility” and “unpredictability”. While Threads’ resemblances to Twitter are eerily uncanny, there are critical differences. For one, the search experience is strictly confined to finding accounts with no ability to look for people’s posts or search by topic. There is also a lack of a trending page which makes it impossible to track the issues that are leading the discourse.
On the positive side of things, Threads and Twitter differ based on their structure and strength. A typical tweet gives you only 280 characters whereas Threads are a series of interconnected tweets extending beyond the character limit. Additionally, when it comes to content organization, owing to its ability to club together a user’s related posts, (making it easier for a reader to track the narrative flow), there is an aspect of storytelling and continuity. However, it is too soon to vouch for the longevity of Threads, because it is barely a month old. The excitement of it being a breath of fresh air may die down, you never know.
Apart from Threads, there are many platforms, like BlueSky and Mastodon, that have come forward now that Twitter’s 250 million users are largely dissatisfied with the slew of changes occurring since Elon Musk took charge in late 2022.
The Twitter users’ list of grievances includes requiring non-users to log in to view tweets, restricting tweet views for users who do not pay to use the platform, making Tweetdeck only usable to those paying for Twitter Blue, lifting bans on far-right accounts – if Musk has done one thing, it is to make everyone wonder whether he is running the once-popular app to the ground.
The latest contender to take its place is not without its problems – Threads’ privacy issues for one. It can collect user data relating to health, contacts, financial information, location, purchase, and browsing history. And yet, Metaverse failed to deliver on the hype and Zuckerberg could use some good luck.
With the same interface: including reposting, liking, and allowing users to limit who can reply to posts, Threads is banking on its Instagram connection for popularity among users. Threads was originally the name of an app that Meta launched to compete with Snapchat in 2019. The app was later abandoned but Meta retained the branding.
The entrance of the ‘X’
Even before the heat of the Twitter vs. Threads controversy could reach its first-month anniversary, there is another talk of the town. And guess who the protagonists are? Of course, the Twitter owner and the Meta owner. This time around, it is Elon Musk who has encountered a problem while rolling out the new Twitter logo, because it appears that Meta already holds rights to it. While Musk wanted to rebrand Twitter to ‘X’, he encountered problems on two levels. Firstly, Meta already has an ‘X’ logo that is connected to its “online social networking services” and “social networking services in the fields of entertainment and application development”. Subsequently, the ‘X’, according to the Insider, “resembles a generic Unicode (an international computing standard in which every character or symbol has a specific numerical value that can be used across platforms) character known as the ‘mathematical double-struck capital X’ that was added to Unicode in March 2001”. Despite all these concerns, Musk seems to be unwavered in pursuing the ‘X’, so he already did.
This rebrand is in no way an attempt to revive Twitter and as Mikhlas Myhr, a professor of marketing at Chapman University, reports “the rebrand indicates that Musk simply considers the US$ 44 billion spent on the network as a sunk cost”. Especially with Threads at its tail, rebranding does not seem to be the solution because Twitter is already in a tumultuous state with its user count hitting new lows. Drew Benvie, the CEO of social media consultancy Battenhall believes that this is “less about rebranding Twitter and more about building a brand around Elon Musk’s empire, including SpaceX”.
At the beginning of July, Musk had threatened to sue Zuckerberg and Threads pinning against it alleged theft of Twitter’s trade secrets and violation of intellectual property rights. And now Zuckerberg seems to be ruffling feathers because they had already used the ‘X’ sign.
How is it that at the epicenter of every technology-related disagreement, it seems that Musk and Zuckerberg are present? Why is it always them at the scene of a crime? Apart from the obvious fact that they claim rights to two goliaths in the field of social media, it could either be because their egos refuse to heed, they don’t run out of things to flex about or they are secretly in love with each other. Only a few weeks ago Elon Musk was trying to one-up Zuckerberg in a cage fight with a tweet that said “up for a cage fight” to which Zuckerberg replied with a “send me location” to which Musk replied “Vegas Octagon” and even suggested his friend, Joe Rogan, referee the match. Musk may have been gutsy to challenge Zuckerberg to a physical cage fight but the latest turn of events shows that the latter has retaliated by coaxing Musk to an online cage fight.
Personally, as a citizen of the social-media world, two things are more intriguing than the Threads Vs Twitter debate. Or who owns the ‘X’ debate. First, Zuckerberg’s trajectory from being called the Facebook owner, to Meta owner, to Threads owner, his brainchildren keep performing well and it looks like there is no end to it in the foreseeable future. Second, as we joyfully jumped between platforms, transferring data from one multi-billionaire to another, some say that the ‘users are the real losers’ and that is something that we can ponder on.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)