Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that his new Twitter competitor, Instagram’s Threads, attracted a whopping 30 million sign-ups in its first 24 hours.
Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched Threads Wednesday night. Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 7 p.m. ET.
“Wow, 30 million sign ups as of this morning. Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app,” Zuckerberg posted on Threads Thursday morning.
Threads is likely to be Twitter’s most serious competitor yet. The platform features tweet-style posts, and users can comment on others’ Threads posts, just like on Twitter.
Zuckerberg tweeted for the first time in over a decade to launch a playful missive at Elon Musk on Twitter, tweeting a meme of two matching Spidermans pointing at each other.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
The goal is to get one billion people to sign up for Threads, Zuckerberg said. The Facebook founder also said they will hold off on ads for now and suggested Meta will grow Threads the same way he grew Facebook.
“Our approach will be the same as all our other products: make the product work well first, then see if we can get it on a clear path to 1 billion people, and only then think about monetization at that point,” Zuckerberg said in another Threads post.
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Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted early Thursday morning after staying up all night and touted the app already reaching 10 million sign-ups, but he acknowledged Instagram still has a lot of work to do.
“Lots more to do. It’s easy to get a bunch of people to sign up, it’s hard to build something that people want to keep using, but quite the first day,” Mosseri said.
A slew of celebrities have already signed up for Threads, including Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Oprah, Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Gordon Ramsay, and Hugh Jackman.
Several big brands also signed up early, including Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Shark Week, Animal Planet, Billboard, HBO, NPR, HGTV, The Washington Post, The Economist, and CBS News.
Threads still lacks many of the features Twitter includes, including direct messaging, a feed of only the accounts the user follows, hashtags, and a search feature. However, some of those features are in the works, according to Instagram’s head.
Twitter responded Thursday by threatening legal action against Meta over Threads, accusing the company of poaching former Twitter employees to build a “copycat” app.
Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro sent Zuckerberg a letter accusing Meta of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Spiro wrote. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”