Mark Zuckerburg is ready to rumble… and no, we’re not talking about the cage flight that may or may not happen against Elon Musk.
Driving the news: Meta is sticking it to Twitter by launching a challenger called Threads. Tomorrow, the internet will have yet another choice for text-based expression *sigh*.
- By building off Instagram’s user base—users will be able to transfer their usernames and followers—the new microblogging app is expected to gain traction quickly.
- Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk fired shots at Meta’s new app over the amount of personal data it will apparently collect on its users.
Why it matters: Competitors are taking advantage of the chaos at Twitter to launch rival platforms, leaving internet users with a dizzying number of options when it comes to how they’ll broadcast their streams of consciousness.
- Between decentralized apps like Mastodon and Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky or Donald Trump’s stick-kicking Truth Social, users now have plenty of options.
Yes, but: Despite Twitter’s mystifying design choices as of late—like introducing Tweet viewing limits, blocking non-users from viewing posts, and allowing paid subscribers to publish 25,000-character tweets—no other text-based platform has really caught on yet.
Bottom line: Twitter has proven resilient so far, but Meta actually has the resources to invest in challenging the company head-on. And, who knows, if things get heated, maybe we’ll have the pleasure of witnessing a Musk-Zuck cage match after all.—SB