Whether Twitter or Threads, the world still wants to talk to itself in real time

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but one can only imagine the reaction of Twitter chief executive Elon Musk to the launch of tech rival Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads on Thursday. As well as producing a copycat text-based public conversation app, the audacious move included co-opting Twitter’s ubiquitous @ sign as its logo and taking “threads” – another Twitter-related term – as its name. As a statement of intent, it’s as bold as it gets.

But the million-dollar question (or in Mr Musk’s case, $44-billion question) is this: are we seeing a genuine Twitter-killer emerging or will it be another flash in the pan from Mr Zuckerberg, who has yet to see his much-hyped metaverse project take off? So far, things look promising for the Meta chief executive. Users are flocking to sign up – seven hours after its launch, Threads reportedly gained 10 million users – that’s close to 24,000 a minute.

A large section of 21st-century humanity wants to have a real-time conversation with itself – hence the importance of platforms such as Twitter or Threads. The anguish that went with Twitter’s recent travails shows there is still a huge market for people who want to talk, argue, share, criticise, collaborate and inform. This is not always pretty, but for many people – and opinion makers in particular – Twitter is an invaluable tool for following breaking news, sharing views or content, or simply taking the pulse of what was happening in the world on any given day.

But it is no secret that Twitter lost users since it began an erratic and unpredictable journey with its mercurial new owner last October. The frustration that greeted Mr Musk’s latest idiosyncrasy – restricting the number of tweets his users could read due to ill-defined data scraping and manipulation claims – was just the latest in a long line of disappointments for Twitter users. The brand has received a pummelling, and the rollercoaster ride that Mr Musk has taken Twitter on as a business – including mass layoffs – has also led to an advertising squeeze; a 40 per cent drop in revenue was reported in January.

It is arguable that Mr Zuckerberg sensed a moment of weakness and struck with his Threads spoiler, possibly even before it was quite ready. Some new arrivals to Threads have their gripes: users are seeing content from unfollowed threads, posts cannot be edited, gifs cannot be uploaded, profile names have to be taken from their Instagram account and multiple links cannot be posted. If these teething problems are ironed out, it could elevate Threads above Twitter, overtaking more modest attempts at provide an alternative, such as Mastodon and BlueSky – the invite-only service from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Threads also holds out the intriguing possibility of a fresh start from the toxicity and trolling that characterised a lot of interactions on Twitter. Mr Zuckerberg has said his goal “is to keep it friendly as it expands” and a function whereby Threads users can hide certain words could help people exercise more control over what they see. It is also currently free from ads, and Meta’s considerable technical know-how – the reliability of its WhatsApp messaging service is a good example – also gives Threads an edge that a misfiring Twitter and other rivals currently lack.

Ultimately, users will decide Threads’ fate, and the market will react appropriately. Only time will tell if over-stretched users of social media want to follow yet another unfamiliar platform, and many people will have spent years on Twitter, which – for good or ill – has elbowed its way into the centre of online culture and real-time conversations. Claims about Twitter’s imminent demise have surfaced before and, for now, many still consider a presence there to be indispensable. But there is a new and significant challenger to contend with. The winner of this fight will exercise great power over people’s online conversations and information sharing, and this will be something those who tweet or thread will have to contend with.