Meta has announced plans to launch the web version of its new text-centric social media platform Threads, as it looks to gain back the traction it has lost since its explosive launch in July.
According to Meta, the web version will be useful for brands and journalists who want to use Threads in a more professional capacity.
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Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, posted to Threads claiming that the company was “close on web”.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the launch could be coming as soon as next week. There has been no official date released by Meta.
The move comes after Threads experienced initial record-breaking success as the fastest-growing app ever. Threads achieved 100 million user account openings in under a week, marking itself as a potentially damaging rival to Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.
This was short-lived, however, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in July that the social media platform’s numbers had dropped more than half in less than a month.
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By GlobalDataLaura Petrone, thematic analyst at research firm GlobalData, doesn’t believe that a web version will do much to reverse the losses to Threads’ user count or strike fear into rival X.
“X’s network effects and influence are still strong among users and haven’t been dented by Threads so far,” Petrone told Verdict.
“In the longer term, this may change, and new, similar social networks may appear, each targeting different groups of users, especially in the run-up to the US presidential elections,” Petrone added.
This sentiment is also echoed by Peter Marshall, chief marketing officer at Add People, a full-service digital marketing agency.
Marshall told Verdict: “With new figures showing that Threads has fallen from its initial 100m users to around 10m, the [Threads and X] race doesn’t seem to be as hot just months after it began.
“However, with Elon Musk suggesting changes to essential features of X like the block feature, more people may be interested in how Threads could serve them better in the long run.”
Musk has had his fair share of criticism since he took over the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Over the past couple of days, X and Musk have been slammed after a “glitch” seemed to have remove all pictures and links on posts made before December 2014.
Musk took to the social media platform on Saturday admitting that X “may fail”.
Shortly prior to the glitch, Musk caused uproar when he announced plans to remove the block button.
“Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” Musk wrote on X.
This toyed with the point that the social media platform could be removed from Apple and Google app stores, as platforms need to have a block button to be eligible for download.
“It looks like X’s biggest threat today is X itself, rather than its rivals,” Petrone said.
