Threads has struggled to retain users since its release in July, but since then the app has added several features that could give it an advantage within the EU. there is.
After months of anticipation, Meta’s potential rival to X, Threads, has entered the EU market, giving it access to a market of nearly 450 million potential users.
This text-based app was released in July and quickly gained a large number of users. His connection with Instagram and his 1.2 billion monthly user base boosted him. However, Meta chose to avoid launching in the EU due to concerns about the EU’s strict regulations on online services.
At the time of its launch, the app was hailed as an antidote to X (formerly known as Twitter), which has been under intense scrutiny since Elon Musk took over the platform last year. Musk even threatened to sue Mehta over the similarities between the two apps.
However, Threads’ rapid rise quickly slowed. This is probably due to a lack of features and an inability to stand out in the competitive and crowded social media market. But can the EU give it the push it needs to become a real challenger to X?
The long road to the EU
Threads launched in July in over 100 countries, including the UK. This makes it even clearer that the problem with the start of the EU lies in data law. Meta and its related apps are facing multiple lawsuits and various fines in the EU for violating the GDPR.
In the days leading up to its release, some people criticized the app in a thread about the amount of data it planned to capture from users. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, said, “All your threads… [sic] It’s ours. ”
Meta appears to have taken the time to ensure that Threads does not face the same scrutiny that other companies’ apps face in the EU. An important additional feature available to EU users is the ability to view content on the app without creating a profile. This seems like a way to provide a privacy-preserving option.
Declining user base
Despite Threads’ early success – one of the most successful launches in history – the number of daily active users plummeted in a short period of time. Analytics firms claimed that the number of daily active users of the app had fallen by more than 80% by the first week of August.
Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said he was “quite optimistic” about Threads, but said the app would not be monetized right away.
The app was criticized after its launch for lacking features compared to competing platforms such as X. For example, Threads received a set of user-requested features that had already been present in X for some time. Filter posts based on who users follow or whether the language of the post can be translated.
In an opinion piece published in the Guardian in July, Siva Vaidyanathan called the thread bland, boring and “doomed to failure”.
But since then, the app has had a number of updates, which could give it a better chance of retaining users within the EU. In October, Meta introduced new features to Threads, including polls and GIFs. The app also recently released its own version of hashtags, but users can only create one tag per post.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during an October earnings call that Threads has just under 100 million monthly active users, which represents a turnaround for the app. Instagram head Adam Mosseri also said more updates are planned to improve the app.
“There’s still a lot of work to do. We have to be careful not to get too confident,” Mosseri said. “We hope to deliver support for Europe, early progress on Fediverse, and improvements to Instagram integration and trends in the coming months.”
However, the app still seems to be lagging in the social media market. Insider Intelligence’s end-September projections put him at 23.7 million monthly users of Threads in the U.S., less than half of X’s user base.
The forecast ranked Threads second-to-last among U.S. social networks, which was expected to remain “unchanged through 2025.”
compete with X
The big question now is whether Threads can match X in terms of users within the EU. The app could take advantage of Musk’s ongoing conflict with advertisers on X. The conflict has intensified in recent months, with major brands such as IBM and Disney pulling advertising from their platforms.
The Meta app is likely to be boosted by the existing Instagram user base that exists in the EU, similar to the surge it saw upon launch in other countries.
Meanwhile, reports earlier this year suggested that Musk could pull Company X out of Europe due to the impending tightening of regulations in Europe, including the Digital Services Act.
In October, the European Commission launched an investigation into X for allegedly spreading disinformation on the platform about events in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas conflict in Israel and Palestine.
10 Things You Need to Know delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.Please sign up for daily briefsSilicon Republic’s digest of important science and technology news.