New Social Media “Threads” Has Less Than Half the Users, Mark Zuckerberg Announces to Employees

Last Updated on 07/30/2023 by てんしょく飯

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on July 28 that the number of users of Threads, a new social media platform he operates, has dropped by less than half.

Threads, which launched in early July, reached 100 million users in its first five days.

It was seen as a competitor to Twitter (now renamed “X”).

However, Zuckerberg admitted that the number of users has been declining rapidly.

If you have over 100 million people signed up, ideally, it would be great if all of them, or even half of them, took root,” he said. That hasn’t happened yet,” Zuckerberg said.

The remarks were made in an announcement to employees, Reuters reported. Zuckerberg said the situation is “normal” and that he expects users to stay more as new features are added to Threads.

Threads was criticized for its lack of features when the service first launched.

Meta, which also operates Instagram and Facebook, has since added individual feeds called “Following” and “Recommended” to Threads. It also expanded the ability to translate posts.

Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, told employees that the company will focus on adding “hooks to keep users engaged” in order to bring them back to Threads.

As an example, Cox cited a feature that “allows Instagram users to see important Threads posts. An Instagram account is required to sign up for Threads, and the two apps are linked.

Zuckerberg also updated staff on Metaverse, a virtual reality (VR) platform in the development stage.

He explained that the work on both augmented reality (AR) and VR technologies that will power Metaverse is “on schedule,” although “not moving very fast. On the other hand, he said that he does not expect “Metaverse” to be a mainstream platform for the next 10 years.

Meta has been criticized for spending too much time and money on “Metaverse” in the past, and Zuckerberg’s comments may add to concerns. The company’s Reality Labs division, which develops VR headsets and other products, has lost billions of dollars.

But Meta’s overall cash flow is good. The company announced this week a profit of $7.79 billion for the second quarter (April-June).