When I first saw the news of Threads app launch by Meta, my reaction was - Oh no, they stole LeoFinance's idea! LeoThreads may not have tens of millions of users yet, but their ambitions are more honorable than what any web2 companies would do. Building a social media platform, for long or short form content, is a very challenging task. It is hundred times more challenging building such platforms in a decentralized fashion. Eventually, decentralized networks will win, I hope.
This post is not about the competition and battles between centralized and decentralized platforms. It is about this strange conflict two billionaires publicly display, and don't hesitate to throw billions around. This drama is not even about the competition between companies. It is not about Twitter vs Threads. It is not about SpaceX or Tesla vs Meta. It is more some unknown quarrel between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
I find it odd that Elon Musk even owns Twitter now, and Zuckerberg owns Threads. And now this puts them in direct competition with each other. Twitter is not Musk's thing. Musk has been a super user of Twitter, was never a social platform entrepreneur. He ended up buying Twitter, just because he could. There could have been some ideas Musk had that he somehow would be able to make Twitter better. We haven't seen any of that yet. Please let me know if you have seen overall improvements. Then again, Musk kept changing his mind if he actually wanted to buy the Twitter, and when he decided to get out of the deal it was too late. Even after running Twitter for a little bit and making changes, he did see a need for someone else to run it. Now Twitter has a new CEO.
I doubt it was about making more money for Musk. He doesn't need any more. He already has plenty and already running other successful companies. One would think his time and efforts would be better spent focusing on Tesla, SpaceX, and others. Yes, he can run Twitter and many more companies. I am not questioning his
building abilities. My point is Twitter isn't where his building skills and talents shine. At least not yet. It seems Twitter is a hobby for Musk, and its success and failure wouldn't mean anything. On the hand I believe he cares deeply about the success and future of SpaceX and Tesla.
Similarly, microblogging platform wasn't Mark Zuckerberg's thing either. There is no doubt Zuckerberg was able to build the biggest social media platform with Facebook despite all the competition and challenges he faced in his journey. When Facebook was taking off, MySpace was a more successful company and Zuckerberg almost sold Facebook to MySpace. MySpace was too arrogant to accept the offer, and it was true they had the largest market share in social and didn't really see how they could fail. But they did fail due to their own doings, and Facebook did become successful due to its own building efforts, skills and talent. Facebook became a big tech, unstoppable. It outgrew itself and now rebranded to Meta, making Facebook is just one of its businesses.
Zuckerberg and his Meta have big ideas, and aren't planning to stop to build and innovate in their space, acquire more companies, and keep expanding their business. However, microblogging was never a thing neither Zuckerberg or Meta considered to be involved in. That wasn't their thing. Things they liked and saw fit to be part of the company they acquired, Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus, etc. These were good buys and add value to their company and does seem to be useful for what they are trying to build in the future.
Twitter was never a competition to Facebook. It was just another platform out there and fulfilled some other purpose. Most importantly Twitter wasn't profitable. In the last decade they probably only had two years that was profitable. Twitter wasn't able to figure out ways to monetize user content and interactions like Facebook was able to do. For years it has been obvious that Facebook was a profitable business, and Twitter wasn't. If Twitter was a better business or in direct competition with Facebook, Zuckerberg would have built Threads like app long time ago.
The timing of Threads launch seems strange. It doesn't look like it is a good business strategy, but rather one billionaire displaying ego to another billionaire and trying to prove something. That something both Elon and Mark are trying to prove seems to be who has better ideas and who can execute them better. It seems personal.
It is not a secret Musk and Zuckerberg are among tech billionaire that do not really like each other. I don't know why. I don't know what may have happened in their past interactions. But they both have expressed less than respect towards each other. This may be a good entertainment for public to see this ongoing drama. But it is strange. Why can't they just be like other billionaires, buy yachts, islands, and fly to the space? They probably already do that. Maybe challenging each other and outdoing is more fun for billionaires. I don't know. I am not one, yet.
Corporations, especially the ones in tech do compete with other and sometimes try to get into spaces they are not in yet to gain some market share. This is a normal phenomena that happens all the time. But it doesn't look like what Meta is doing is the same thing. There was a time Google tried to build a social media platform, multiple times. Their biggest effort was when they launched Google+. Even that effort failed and they ended up discontinuing these platforms. This shows that money and resource may not be full answer. Google had all the best engineers, and talents around the world. If anybody would be successful in building a competition to Facebook that time, it would have been Google. But it didn't work. Sometimes acquisitions are better route. For example Google's Youtube purchase was a successful one, and now they dominate video sharing platform.
As impressive the sign ups for Threads were after it launched, with having hundred million accounts in days, this doesn't guarantee that Threads will become a success. Time will tell, but all the challenges are ahead. It is truly impressive how Meta was able to achieve this in a very short amount of time. Their initial thoughts of exploring the option of building a microblogging platform became public just few months ago. I think it was around March when Meta expressed these intentions. Now they have an app with millions of active accounts, and they haven't made it available to all countries yet. Maybe it will remembered as a good business decision in the future. I still doubt it was driven by a business intentions.
If Threads becomes a success it may actually be a bad thing for Meta. It would mean that Meta is becoming a huge monopoly that can't be ignored anymore. Hypothetically speaking, if Twitter fails in the future and disappears like MySpace did, and Threads becomes the biggest microblogging platform, it would mean Meta controls all the social media. Almost. This will attract regulatory and legal actions to break up the company to prevent it from becoming a monopoly. I doubt Meta would want such attention. For this reason, it might be in Meta best interest to keep companies around like Twitter, to present an illusion of competition, even though there was none.
Twitter has built a globally recognized brand. I is not easy to imagine Twitter disappearing anytime soon. It will probably will go through many more changes and they experiment with different things and see what works to make it a sustainable business. Even if they continue operating at loss, there is still value in being a globally recognized platform where people can go to express thoughts and share ideas and news.
So, is Threads a threat to Twitter? I believe so. But it is also an opportunity for Twitter to rediscover itself, innovate and become a better Twitter. Threads might just be the needed competition that can turn Twitter into something they haven't even thought about yet, and make it even a better network. Zuckerberg made his move. It is Musk's turn now.
Regardless what will happen with Twitter and Threads in the future, I root for decentralized system as it is time to change the web and break these monopolies. Web3 is coming. But it will be up-to people to choose.
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
I tend to disagree a bit. I think Elon overpaid for Twitter and he wants to make sure that it becomes profitable. Zuckerberg obviously wants to compete with the rest of the social media platforms and I just don't think Elon wants competition to really succeed. However, I don't think Elon needs to consider threads as a competition because it's too barebone. I don't think the features are there for people to want to move there.
Yes, probably the idea was to make it profitable and make it public again. Not sure.
I find it odd that Elon Musk even owns Twitter now, and Zuckerberg owns Threads - honestly, how both of them have managed to spring up a healthy competition just by owning and creating social media platforms respectively needs to be studied .
I also feel Mark just tries to sieze an opportunity that has been knocking on the door . He sort of used Elon's recent limits to amount of tweets being read to bring forth his own threads to life .
However, I still don't feel threads has what it takes to drag Twitter's audiences over, at least not for now . Musk is riding on the success of Jack Dorsey's creation. It's not even a thing of loyalty on the part of the users , I just feel something extra has to be done to lure them over to another social media platform.
This is where over very own dear Leothreads comes into the picture. There aren't limits on Leothreads and you can even earn organically from the threads one makes . It's only a matter of time before people key into this financial freedom movement.
Great post @geekgirl.
The tech industry can be very crazy most times. The current issue of thread, having similar resemblance to twitter has taken everyone's attention for a while, but has seems to died down.
Generally, we all know twitter to be a threading platform, where short contents are written, and others being nexted in the reply section.
What baffles me most is how thread was able to hit over 55million users within a 24hrs.
This totally proves that lots of internet users are ready to go for anything that comes with full entertainment and pleasure.
The idea of threading is the main fear, because, having two(2) social media that performances similar task, can lead to serious competition among both companies.
Yes, 55 million in a day is impressive. But it being part of Instagram helped too.
After doing social media management for so many years I don't think it's a threat. That's because certain people gravitate to different platforms. For example some people only use Instagram and never touch twitter or never cared to. Threads would just add a new layer to that but it wouldn't take away any market share from twitter.
That is so true. Some people just stay with the platforms they like.
It is looking good for Threads right now given the many missteps that Twitter has made recently. They need to work on their account deletion process though as it used to delete both the instagram and thread profiles. Hopefully some of the action spills over into our own Threads.
I think changes in Twitter were some of the reasons why they decided to try Threads. This may give them an opportunity to capture the audience that is disappointed with Twitter.
I think many people had that same thought of Meta stealing LeoFinance’s idea. Until now though, I never knew that these two actually don’t like each other. Not something I see or care to even follow.
I also agree that Threads could be a double-edged sword and like I was telling my friend, the whole attention and hype over threads is just normal. It’s new and people would check it out.
Don’t know if you saw that stuff about Truth Social when Musk gave the view limit. A new social just appeared out of nowhere and then people were migrating to there because it was just like Twitter. No sooner, the app crashed just as Elon removed the view limit.
So, threads might be a huge success now but as you pointed, only time will tell. I mean everyone rushes to the new shop don’t they? But what happens when the novelty wears off? Can the shop still retain its customers?
As for me, I’m watching. Let’s see how all this goes.
My hope is people will start choosing to be owners instead of customers and embrace solutions like Hive. But it seems we have a long journey for something like that to happen.
Threads is no threat to Twitter at all. Twitter might have other threats currently but meta and its extreake censorship model is a joke. I don’t know anyone who’s using it legitimately instead of Twitter. Just a few people who went to look and check it out but don’t plan on using again. Not to mention screw Meta! Stealing our #Threads name!
I guess that talk of billionaires getting bored because of too much money at their disposal is true. Like in Elon's case so he just wanted to monetize it. Turn it into something magnificent like Tesla and SpaceX and that's why he's setting up all these view limits so that the masses would get their account verified.
But it just can't work like that. I also feel it makes no sense for billionaires that could even work together to get all feisty. But the public thrives on drama like this so they are at least providing something.
I, for one can't wait to see how successful Threads would be. I was beyond upset when they stole the name and all from us. But, web3 will always be king. So we only have to wait.
Meta using Threads as the name may actually become a free marketing for LeoThreads. Same Threads but decentralized. I think timing of LeoThreads was perfect. I am just glad Leo was the first.
Yeah, that's my happiness as well. So, no matter what, we at least know that we're not the copycats.
I think Elon has a bigger play at twitter than we are seeing. He wishing to own Every one and twitter is his best bet. Mark seems to know something. And has clearly taken advantage of opportunities that have risen from Elons capitalistic approach. They are both purely Greedy human beings and want to run every social and financial aspects using social media and through the monies they have amassed
They do seem to be greedy. But you kinda have to be a bit greedy to build big companies.
I still wonder why Elon bought Twitter and entered into the social media business. Perhaps, it's his vision of building the everything app that he is pursuing. But I think he's really better off focusing on his other successful companies like SpaceX and Tesla.
Meta's Threads is trying to become a better alternative to Twitter given it recent shortcomings but I'm not sure that it will be sustainable for them when the hype falls off. Twitter can definitely use the birth of Threads as an opportunity to reinvent itself as it has a good global brand.
With the fast growth thread is really experiencing, I don't think twitter can withstand what thread is about to offer
What can Threads offer Twitter doesn't already have?
I think threads are looking quite good. To get that many threads in a short time is a great achievement !
It’s centralized heavily censored trash 🗑️
Competition will eventually lead to better Twitter (unless Elon is a dumbass, which isn't a 0% possibility).
I think Elon is already tired of Twitter.
Yeah, let's just hope that the availability of theeds by Meta will iead twitter to being a better twitter, this is a real competition between billionaires. The rate at which users have signed up this threads within such a short while has proved that many are willing to go for something better , funnier and entertaining
Weldon @geekgirl
True, it is up to us. They still desperately use those Web2 platforms getting nothing in return. It seems HIVE and its Layer-2s need more time to be known and popular.
The way we are now seeing the battle between these two and as soon as the new feature has come people have joined it now it is to see who wins this battle in the end as both are the richest in the world. are among the people. Now a days people are liking things that take less time and the way this short video content has become popular too.
Twitter and Threads are both great places to advertise Hive.
https://twitter.com/why_hive
https://twitter.com/offgrid
Does it work though? I wonder how many people joined Hive from reading about it on Twitter.
Yes it works well. I am earning lots of Bitcoin there. There are some people from Hive, and I have been able to get some people from Nostr to join Hive.
The funny thing about Nostr is that they love Coffee and Ostriches …
They have this thing called #zapathon every Thursday and Friday at 5:00 pm … everyine posts these zap meme gifs and everyone goes crazy zapping each other with Satoshi … it’s a strange place
Jack Dorsey is known for randomly zapping people with 1 million Satoshi … $300 USD
Competition is good. LeoThreads doing its own thing on its own is just an echo chamber. We need some JaguarThreads and CheetahThreads or it will stagnate and die.
I think once people understand the advantages they'll make the right decision...
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
Its "threads" news all over. Interestingly didn't find much of it on Twitter though.
That being said, the Threads feed is totally irrelevant to me so far. It has shown me 1 thread so far that I actually found interesting. For Thread to be placed as an alternative to provide what's happening around the world, they have to get the algorithms tweaked ASAP IMHO.
I have tried the Threads myself and not planning anytime soon. But Twitter vs Threads will probably become an ongoing topic.
It feels like a threat to Twitter and do you know that a lot of people are now switching to threads? And now, Elon Musk is angry. And one of the things that affecfed Twitter is when he removed the verification tag of everyone and still came with an update a few days ago that there is a number of threads that we can post. That is not really reasonable to me...
What a great post! I really read from start to finish. It was an intriguing issue. Thanks for the informative post.
Intriguing issue? What was the issue? Respectfully your comment reads as a bot auto post.
Las nuevas plataformas toman terreno e intentan ya incursiones detro de las redes sociales blokchain y este es el caso de esta nueva plataforma.
Las nuevas plataformas toman terreno e intentan ya incursiones detro de las redes sociales blokchain y este es el caso de esta nueva plataforma.
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Nothing drives progression and pioneering quite like a little healthy competition. It's definitely a story that will still mature and develop over time. However, I don't believe it to be too much of a threat... at least in the short to medium term.
Yes, I don't use anything FB. I only use Twitter to talk about Hive and bitcoin. That should probably stop too.