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'Threads' Downloads Nearly Doubled in September, as New Features Roll Out (businessinsider.com) 67

Posted by EditorDavid from the pulling-on-loose-Threads dept.
"Mark Zuckerberg is making good on his promise to accelerate the use of Threads," reports Business Insider: The Meta CEO insisted in July that the app was not in its final form. "I'm highly confident that we're gonna be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow," Zuckerberg said. Since then, Threads has rolled out a host of major new features, including a web version, keyword search, voice posts, and the ability to edit posts, even as it avoids promoting news. Smaller things, too, like being able to follow updates in individual threads at the tap of a bell icon, a way to mass follow people mentioned in a post, and even tag people's Instagram accounts, are now available... More Threads features are said to be on the way, like polls.
But Insider also reports that "As the app has matured quickly in recent weeks, users have started to return and downloads have continued to rise." So far in October, Threads has hovered around 33 million daily active users and 120 million monthly active users, according to data from Apptopia, up from about 25 million daily users and 100 million monthly users in July... Since the app launched on July 6, it's been downloaded 260 million times, Apptopia data shows, with downloads in September almost double the downloads in August...

Although the entire team working on Threads remains small by Meta standards, around 50 people, the company was surprised by the interest in the app and "really wants it to work," an employee said. To that end, Threads is now being integrated to an extent with Facebook and Instagram, two of the most popular apps in the world. There is a direct link to Threads on each user's Instagram page, a post on Threads can be sent in Instagram DMs, and as of this week, Threads is being promoted within the Instagram app feed via a small carousel of select posts under the header "Threads for you...."
It's not just Instagram, according to BGR. "If you've been posting some especially strange messages Threads, thinking that only the few people who follow you will see them, I have some bad news for you..." As spotted by TechCrunch, users on Facebook have noticed something new on their News Feed: content from Threads. It appears that Meta is now showing Facebook users a new "For You from Threads" section on the News Feed that contains recommended content from the sibling social media platform.
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'Threads' Downloads Nearly Doubled in September, as New Features Roll Out More

'Threads' Downloads Nearly Doubled in September, as New Features Roll Out

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  • If OG Facebook is "Facebook Boomer" and Instagram is "Facebook Teen" does this position Threads as "Facebook Millenial"?

    And then WhatsApp and Messenger...

    Does Facebook have additional segregated chat platforms beyond these five?

    • Who gives a flying fuck, really

      • Who gives a flying fuck

        Nobody.

        Number of downloads is completely meaningless. Billions of downloads does not mean that anyone actually likes it or finds it useful. It simply means that people are curious and trying it out, nothing more. Whether or not it has any long term success remains to be seen. I am skeptical that it will have any long term success because there are already too many well established social media platforms out there.

        • But you heard Zuckerfuck:

          I'm highly confident that we're gonna be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow

          In other words, it's already a dumpster fire, or more like a landfill fire, and he wants to throw more gasoline on it to make the flames grow.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Nkwe ( 604125 )

        Who gives a flying fuck, really

        Those in in the "mile high" club?

    • If OG Facebook is "Facebook Boomer" and Instagram is "Facebook Teen" does this position Threads as "Facebook Millenial"?

      And then WhatsApp and Messenger...

      Does Facebook have additional segregated chat platforms beyond these five?

      Is a segregation line really needed to delineate addict, addict, addict, addict, or addict?

      I think not.

  • They're both run by assholes (Score:3)

    by GrahamJ ( 241784 ) on Sunday October 22, 2023 @05:01PM (#63944051)

    I'll continue using neither.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dddux ( 3656447 )

      Exactemois. I tend to avoid anything related to name "Zuckerberg". And Google, for that matter. The thing they have in common is would be commonly called "rotten to the core". "Power corrupts" quote describes these two perfectly. Not that they're alone in that bubble of corruption, of course, but not just a drop in the ocean, either. More like a sea in the ocean.

  • Twitter has become super political with barrages of right-wing propaganda. Humanists are not welcome there. People who care about every human are not welcome there. You need to a be a right-winger with a tribalist mentality and world-view. Centrism or leftist people are absolutely not welcome there. Elon Musk keeps saying he is a centrist with balanced views, but then he only retweets right wing stuff. When did he last retweet something that the right wing would dislike? In the old days he would say stuff l

    • Re:Twitter is too political (Score:4, Funny)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Sunday October 22, 2023 @05:27PM (#63944109) Homepage

      Elon Musk keeps saying he is a centrist with balanced views, but then he only retweets right wing stuff.

      His political views are simply whatever he believes will earn him the most profit, kinda like the Ferengi.

      • No, Musk is an idiot. He has brain worms. People are actively leaving the site he overpaid billions for because of his views. They are costing him money. Advertisers fled twitter/X because of him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
      by your definition has always been political just before you were not in the outside looking in so you did not notice
    • That's free speech for you. Sometimes you have to read stuff you disagree with.

      • Uh yeah, but sometimes I'd like to see or say stuff I agree with. And yes I can say anything I want there but it's not broadcast even if it has a high likes-to-views ratio than most of the right-wing stuff that have low likes-to-views ratios. What I mean by likes-to-views ratio is the number of people clicking Like vs. the number of Views. Stuff I post often get a high likes-to-views ratio, in spite of it being shown only to right-wingers (I can tell from the Replies), but the tweet still doesn't get shown

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 )

          Uh yeah, but sometimes I'd like to see or say stuff I agree with.

          I'm sure you can find plenty on there that do. I know I've run into my fair share of them, and I don't even use twitter.

          And yes I can say anything I want there but it's not broadcast even if it has a high likes-to-views ratio than most of the right-wing stuff that have low likes-to-views ratios.

          Is it that, or is it that you don't want them to be there at all? I still remember using IRC in the 90s and when doing a /list, inevitably you'd scroll past channels with topics literally praising Hitler. Usenet was similar (maybe still is? I haven't used it in a long time, but it's so full of spam that basically nobody can.) Nowadays you basically don't see that anymore. But the 90s was j

        • I like to see ideas that make me think, whether I end up disagreeing with them or not. If someone complains about the supposed far-right Twitter (which I have yet to see, but then again I only follow a handful of accounts related to my field), then that person is probably better suited for an echo chamber like the comments section of the New York Times. As for the CEO, you don't have to follow him if you don't want to see his retweets.
        • As for the boradcast thing, it's the same for everybody, you can tweet to your followers or reply to any (or most) tweet. It's the same on say LinkedIn

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dddux ( 3656447 )

      In my view, Twitter is now just more balanced. It's more balanced than ever. It is called "free speech", you know? It is now my favourite social media platform. I am social-liberal btw, not even centre, and as far from right as someone can be. The difference between us may be that I call things by their true name, though.

      • Allowing more literal Nazi speech on Twitter doesn't make it more balanced, though. It makes it more hostile. And that's literally what's going on there. Musk is banning accounts which are hostile to musk, and retweeting accounts which are known white supremacists, anti-semites, and Nazis or at least Nazi fans.

        https://www.rollingstone.com/c... [rollingstone.com]
        https://fortune.com/2023/08/17... [fortune.com]
        https://fortune.com/2023/05/10... [fortune.com]
        https://thehill.com/opinion/ci... [thehill.com]

        There is more bot activity on Twitter today than ever before.

        https:/ [socialmediatoday.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dddux ( 3656447 )

          Not many people can truly embrace what free speech is about. Why is it important to let everyone speak. In a nutshell, because everything else but letting people express themselves freely is literally fascism and censorship made by whomever *feels* to be such a *good* person in their own eyes and eyes of their peers. Countless harrowing atrocities have been done in the name of "good" throughout our history.

          Internet should be treated as a public square. I can bet you could encounter all kinds of people at th

    • There are no "barrages of right wing propaganda." It's called real reporting. It's called free speech rather than mass censorship.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Well, for example he promoted both CIA-associated account and a Hamas associated account for a healthy mix of both sides of the current Middle Eastern war. He also routinely tweets mainstream liberal points. Problem is, modern American left is illiberal, anti-semitic, blatantly racist, sexist and generally anti-reality. No, trans women aren't women. They're trans women. Yes, BLM is an rabid anti-semitic organisation. Yes, almost all of the hate crimes in most of the US are committed by blacks in spite of ma

      • In case you haven't noticed, it's all an act.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        My experience of moving from Phoenix to LA has been quite telling. There it's a lot easier to get access to health care, even if you have no income at all. Here it doesn't matter what your income is, it's still expensive and it's still hard as fuck to get an actual appointment, part of which is because California loves to tax the shit out of health care in ways that no other state does. Over there, you pay a lot less in taxes, and

    • You only think this because previously all right leaning content was crushed and censored by the left. Now that censorship is reduced the left are realising how unpopular their insane opinions are.

    • What are you talking about? Twitter has been THE main tool for the pseudo-activist left, their very own kangaroo-court of public opinion to wield against anyone not 120% agreeing with them. And they gladly used it as their form of psychological violence.

    • Re:Twitter is too political (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Monday October 23, 2023 @01:17AM (#63944637)

      The story isn't really about how Twitter is a shithole. I agree that it is, but your post is just a big invitation for all the Musk fanboys to post their usual drivel (see existing replies).

      It seems implicit in your post that it makes sense to use Threads because Musk is attempting to turn Twitter into 4chan. Or perhaps you're saying that Twitter's toxicity has pushed others to Threads. Sorry if that's reading too much into it, but otherwise what your wrote is just completely off topic.

      I think that using Threads because Twitter has become toxic politically is a bit like taking up crystal meth because cocaine has caused you too many health problems. The toxic culture that Musk is tapping into on Twitter was created on Facebook. I can't figure out whether he's trying to exploit it, if he's just been duped into it like his users were, or if he's just stupid. Regardless, Facebook is much worse than Twitter simply because they are better at obfuscating the toxicity from critics and pretending like they're doing their best to navigate challenging social problems when, in fact, no one could possibly be more responsible than Facebook for creating these problems. Facebook has literally allowed governments to coordinate genocide using their platform in exchange for monopolizing the internet in said countries. That's just the easy example.

      Social media is the problem. It doesn't matter what flavor it comes in. It's like cigarettes. No one has yet to make a healthy variant and it may not even be possible.

  • Stop trying to make Threads a thing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Sunday October 22, 2023 @05:12PM (#63944073) Homepage Journal

    Threads had a brief shot to become a thing. It blew it. It's still useless, as the one thing you can't do on Threads is be social. It's a way for companies and brands and "influencers" to shove content down your throat, and that's it.

    The thing that makes X "the Internet's town square" is ultimately the "trending" tab. Now that it's no longer being censored and no longer heavily controlled by bots, it provides a view of what real people are really talking about. Threads doesn't have that.

    The "new features" that Threads has rolled out since it launched are an ability to filter based on accounts you follow (but it's still an algorithmic "best of," so it'll be missing things), and - the most hilarious thing of all - a new ability to do a search of posts made to Threads. At launch, search was limited to searching for people's handles. You could try and find someone if you knew their handle, and that was it. Now, you can try and find posts that have a keyword in it.

    But the search is still pretty useless. It's basically a substring match, with posts returned ordered by an unknown algorithm. (Does it favor newer posts? Who knows, Threads hasn't been around long enough to be able to tell.) And there are no hashtags and no trending topics, so it's basically impossible to find out what people are talking about.

    Facebook can keep trying to jam Threads content into other places, but no one cares any more. Threads has become a corporate hellhole where brands talk to themselves. There are no real people there, only "social media managers" trying to post "trendy content."

    • Nah, it's picking up steam. The engagement for some of the bigger accounts (not the SUPER big accounts, just ones that are middling famous--think Hank Green or Patton Oswalt) is effectively equal between Twitter and Threads despite lower follower counts (by the reckoning of those account owners and some un-scientific but reasonable tests).

      Threads may have just barely crossed the threshold to be a real thing. I don't think it'll ever be as big as Twitter at its peak, but that doesn't mean it can't be a fairl

    • The thing that makes X "the Internet's town square" is ultimately the "trending" tab. Now that it's no longer being censored and no longer heavily controlled by bots, it provides a view of what real people are really talking about.

      I understand what trending is, but I never got why anybody would care about what random people are interested in. But then I don't get reality TV either and yet a lot of people are interested in that too (probably the same people who care what's trending). And I'm just as real a

    • Re:Stop trying to make Threads a thing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday October 23, 2023 @05:44AM (#63944801) Homepage Journal

      Twitter's trending tab is pure clickbait now. Elon made it so that subscriber accounts appear first, and if their posts are popular enough they get paid. As such, it's all just farming outrage and interaction now.

      It has absolutely nothing to do with what "real people" are talking about.

      It's not uncensored either. Despite claiming that jokes are legal on Twitter, Musk personally bans accounts that mock him and his hairbrained schemes.

      I haven't tried Threads because it's not available in Europe. That should tell you something - it doesn't comply with EU privacy regulations. I am on Bluesky and it's much nicer than Twitter, but also there are far fewer posts. So pleasant but not good for doom-scrolling. Mastodon is a bit better in that the global feed has more content, but it's a bit unfocused.

    • Threads had a brief shot to become a thing.

      Most social media platforms "became a thing" over a period of a decade through a process of chipping away at an incumbent social media platform or other communications platform. There is no "brief shot", and given the impact to date Threads very much *is* a thing, even if you refuse to acknowledge it, and even if I hate that it exists.

      The thing that makes X "the Internet's town square" is ultimately the "trending" tab.

      So you're saying with one simple change you can make Threads happen? That sounds like it contradicts your first paragraph.

    • The thing that makes X "the Internet's town square" is ultimately the "trending" tab. Now that it's no longer being censored and no longer heavily controlled by bots

      There are provably more bots on Xitter now than there ever have been. I never, ever had a problem with bots before Elno. In the last month, though, it's accelerated ludicrously. Over 50% of the xeets I xeet are liked by a Chinese porn spam bot within fifteen minutes. If you think that Xitter is less controlled by bots now as compared to literally any time in Twitter history [theguardian.com], you are completely out to lunch.

      Threads has become a corporate hellhole where brands talk to themselves.

      We don't even have adequate words to describe what Xitter is now. It's that plus a love letter from El

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The thing that makes X "the Internet's town square" is ultimately the "trending" tab. Now that it's no longer being censored and no longer heavily controlled by bots, it provides a view of what real people are really talking about. Threads doesn't have that.

      LoL, By trying to control what other people see on the "Trending" tab, Musk is killing the "app formerly known as Twitter". Users are falling off left, right and centre because most don't want to be subjected to far-right propaganda.

      "Controlled by bots" would be a vast improvement on what it currently is.

      The reason people keep trying alternatives to the app formerly known as Twitter is because they find it increasingly hard to keep using the app formerly known as Twitter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      twitter absolutely is still manipulating what content they push including trends. Only think that has changed is that is now whatever musk wants to push. It is about as trustworthy as trump telling the truth.

  • How about neither (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

    My biggest complaint about X is that my feed is full of algorithmically derived bullshit posts, and there appears to be no way to limit it to only the people I actually want to follow. Sometime in the last few months or so, Facebook did exactly the same thing and my feed is almost entirely "Suggested For You" posts. It's gotten to the point where I don't bother using it anymore and have just told friends and family that if I don't see their thing they posted on Facebook, blame it on Zuck for burying their

    • Ironically, Threads actually has a 'Following' tab that does what it says on the tin. You don't seem to be able to have that be your DEFAULT view, but it's there and you can tap it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NaCh0 ( 6124 )

      Wrong. It's right up there in the header of the feed. Click "Following" and you only see the people who you follow.

      The 2 tabs on X make it super simple to switch between who you are following and recommended posts.

      • Click "Following" and you only see the people who you follow.

        Yeah, I have that as my default. It still doesn't stop X from showing you "Who to follow" and an absurd amount of promoted posts, though.

    • For Facebook you can use the Social Fixer extension and select which type of posts you want to see and in what order.

  • 19% if you just look at the United States. They could probably survive if not for all the debt but unless the Saudis bail them out so that they can have a propaganda platform I don't see how the whole thing can keep going. Musk would have to raid his other companies and if he did that it would tank their stock prices since it's so obvious that Twitter isn't going to be able to be profitable.

    The funny thing is they weren't actually that far off before the takeover. As a percentage they want to losing all

    • Now I don't see how the company can survive.

      They're going to charge subscriptions. [cnbc.com] In a sane world, I'd have said a sarcastic "good luck" to that, but considering that Netflix gave password sharers the middle finger and jacked up prices and their subscriptions went up, anything is possible. People just don't wanna give up their entertainment and I suppose to some people, participating in X's dumpster fire of a community is entertaining.

      The far right wing shift isn't going to play with the kind of younger people who are going to be the consumers in 6-10 years, which in turn is going to be a major problem for advertisers who want going to want to see their brands associated with that

      Funny thing is, every new generation gets labeled as being so liberal compared to their parents until that generat

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        Yep.

        I'd personally say that Millennials are markedly, significantly more conservative than their Boomer parents, on the whole. The birth rate statistics, and number of SAHMs going up, supports that assertion. Seeing some positive indicators from the upcoming Zoomers too...

      • Funny thing is, every new generation gets labeled as being so liberal compared to their parents until that generation grows up.

        Conservatives love to say this to imply there's something mature about their worldview, but I'm not sure it's necessarily true. Even if it's true that statistically young people tend to be more liberal and older people more conservative, I think there's a bit more going on.

        First, "liberal" and "conservative" are moving targets. The radical feminists of decades ago were considered extremely liberal in their day but according to a lot of the liberal Gen-Zers they're as far right as one can be.

        Second, it's my

  • I had forgotten about it. Is it still a thing, does anyone really use it ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NaCh0 ( 6124 )

      No, threads is still a desolate wasteland. The numbers are fake because they scared people into claiming their usernames and prevent people from deleting their accounts without also axing their instagram account.

      I assume this article is either from an anti-Elon blogger or is being paid in Zuckerdollars.

  • Of all the social media platforms, I have a harder and harder time finding just about any use even for Instagram and Facebook. Who actually uses Threads? And why?

  • "I'm highly confident that we're gonna be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow,"

    You know, when someone like Mark "Dumb Fucks" Zuckerberg says something like that, I'm curious as to exactly what he means, since users are the actual product being bought and sold. Don't give me gasoline analogies. I'd like to know what highly addictive thing you're going to inject into The Product to get them to "help it grow".

    And then question why that's legal.

  • X is better than Twitter ever was. There's no need for Threads. They could pay me to sign in and I still wouldn't use it.

  • I would not be surprised in the least bit if close to 100% of the "installs" are a) people reinstalling their phones, b) people accidentally installing it, c) multiple updates a month making it look like "more downloads", when in fact, it's simply the app updating.

    Either that, or it's the furry exodus from twitter...

  • First we had the amazing newfound devotion to "private companies" in social media doing whatever they wanted. That for no reason at all just happened to occur in 2020. (looks sideways at audience)

    Then along came Musk ... "ok, I'll buy one. What was that again, about how great this is?"

    Ever since then, watching y'all scurry around trying to make threaded mastodons a thing ... priceless!

  • "I'm highly confident that we're gonna be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow,"

    You mean like a dumpster fire? Or a book burning?

  • Some of us don't use our phones much, and are in front of a screen all day. Download the windows app, you say? Not on linux.

    We need a website to be a real thing. At least blue sky understood that.

  • ...we're gonna be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow.

    Oh, yes please. Please pour gasoline on Threads/Facebook/Metaverse. That's one self-immolation I would love to see.

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