Threads overtakes ChatGPT as fastest growing app ever
source: cybernews.com | image: pexels.com
Threads, an Instagram app, has signed up 100 million users in less than five days since launch, a feat that took ChatGPT two months to achieve.
Meta’s Twitter rival hit the 100 million mark in the early hours of Monday (July 10th), according to the data platform Quiver Quantitative, beating an earlier record set by OpenAI’s ChatGPT app.
ChatGPT made history in January when it added 100 million active users in just two months after its launch. It took TikTok nine months and Instagram two and a half years to hit this milestone.
The user estimate for Threads is based on the account numbers shown on Instagram pages. It is too early to say how many of those will use the app regularly.
Twitter is believed to have just under 354 million users worldwide who access their account at least once a month, according to data from Statista.
Threads benefits from its direct link to Instagram, which is estimated to have over 1 billion active users worldwide. It launched last Wednesday (July 5th) on Apple and Android app stores in over 100 countries.
The app’s eventual launch in the EU, where it is not available due to data privacy laws, will likely further boost its user count.
Musk sees red
Threads is also seen as the most viable alternative to Twitter, which saw some of its users grow disillusioned with the platform after its takeover by billionaire Elon Musk in October.
Mastodon gained some traction but is more complicated than Twitter to use, while Bluesky, founded by Twitter’s former boss Jack Dorsey, is currently invitations-only.
A day after Threads was launched, Twitter threatened to sue Meta over “systemic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” with Musk tweeting, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
The billionaire’s fixation with Threads continued over the weekend. “Zuck is a cuck,” he tweeted, referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In another message, he said, “I propose a literal dick measuring contest,” accompanied by the ruler emoji.
Last month, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage fight in Las Vegas, to which the Meta boss agreed.
On Threads, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri sought to diffuse some tensions, posting that the platform’s goal “isn’t to replace Twitter.”
Its goal was to create a “public square” for Instagram users who never embraced Twitter, and Twitter users that are “interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter.”
Mosseri also said that Threads will not do anything to encourage it as a platform for politics and hard news even though it will “inevitably” show up on the platform.