Twitter killer: Over 22 million join Threads in 12 hours of its release

After the rollout of much-awaited text-based social media platform, over 22 million users jumped to Meta-owned Threads according to the latest figures as CEO Mark Zuckerberg also claimed Thursday that more than 10 million people have signed up within hours of its launch, giving a hard time to Twitter.  

Threads is currently the biggest competitor to the billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter — which he bought for $44 billion last year.

Several other Twitter challengers came to the fore but could not secure the number of users as Threads got.

The app was released to the public in 100 countries at 7:00pm EDT Wednesday and would not carry ads temporarily.

While writing on his official account on Threads, Facebook founder Zuckerberg wrote Thursday: "10 million sign-ups in seven hours."

Some accounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.

The CEO of Meta spent his time during the platform's launch replying to new users.

"One thing that's up is the number of world champion MMA fighters on Threads, especially now that you're here!" he wrote in a reply to American MMA fighter Jon Jones.

"Round one of this thing is getting off to a good start," he said in another.

In his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarity of the two platforms.

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

According to Twitter, it has more than 200 million daily users.

People have been jumping to the new Twitter rival after Elon Musk carried out several unpopular measures spreading uncertainty by restructuring Twitter’s finances and firing thousands of employees.

It, however, backfired and the company lost nearly half of its value as the 52-year-old had said in an interview that his company is worth less than half of its value when he acquired it.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX carried out some unpopular changes such as removing blue checkmarks, directing people to pay monthly amounts for the verified marks and in the latest decision, limiting the number of tweets a user.

Zuckerberg is cashing on the dwindling Twitter users as some people are anticipating Threads to be a Twitter killer.

"It's as simple as that: if an Instagram user with a large number of followers such as Kardashian or a Bieber or a Messi begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive," strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser said on Substack.

Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users "to make it as big as Twitter."

"Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening," she added.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build "an open and friendly platform for conversations."

"The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind," he said.