Is Instagram’s new Threads app a first-week success? Metrics are one way to judge that, obviously.
Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday that more than 30 million people had signed up, while The Verge reported that internal data showed more than 95m posts by those users in the app’s first 24 hours.
But perhaps a better signal is the reaction of Twitter, which is reportedly threatening to sue Meta over its new rival.
The accusation is that Meta “hired dozens of former Twitter employees” over the past year and that “these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information”.
The letter sent by Twitter’s lawyers – first reported on by Semafor – goes on to describe Threads as a “copycat” app. Twitter owner Elon Musk has since weighed in, tweeting “Competition is fine, cheating is not”.
However, Meta’s communications boss Andy Stone has claimed “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing”.
Will Twitter’s threat of a lawsuit turn into an actual lawsuit? That may hinge on the nature of any agreements that its former employees signed when they were laid off by the company last year. But it’s safe to say that Threads’ launch has firmly rattled Twitter already.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: Wyng
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