This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on July 6th, 2023. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.
Can Instagram’s new Twitter clone challenge Elon Musk? SvD’s tech analyst Björn Jeffery has tested the new service that launched last night and answers three questions about how it works.
Threads is Mark Zuckerberg’s and Meta’s latest app. Simply put, the app serves the same function as Twitter. Threads launches as an extension of Instagram, with the same login credentials.
If Instagram is about photos and videos, Threads is about text and discussion. Like other challengers such as Bluesky and Mastodon, the interface is to say the least familiar. Anyone who has previously used Twitter immediately understands how the service is meant to work.
The links to parent company Meta are almost invisible, aside from the extensive data collection — likely for future advertising — happening in the background. That data and the GDPR regulation are said to be among the reasons why Threads is not yet available in Sweden or the rest of the EU.
If there is one thing Zuckerberg’s Meta has been good at, it is copying from competitors. The app Snap has sometimes, somewhat cheekily, been called Instagram’s development department, the similarities have been so significant. The Reels feature that has been a success on Instagram is essentially identical to TikTok.
But not all copies have worked equally well. When Meta launched a clone of the audio app Clubhouse, it was a flop — and the original app has flopped too, suggesting the concept was simply wrong from the start. Twitter, on the other hand, is an established user behavior of more than 15 years.
Under normal circumstances it is difficult for apps that aim to challenge established giants. There are few reasons to abandon a service you are already used to. The similarity to the original also becomes the weakness — why switch if you already have a service that does the same thing?
Two things work in Threads’ favor in this case.
The first is timing. Twitter owner Elon Musk has been in almost constant turbulence over changes to his newly purchased product. There is skepticism, and some concern, that Twitter could deteriorate. The desire to carry on as before is therefore greater than ever, even if it means switching services.
The second reason is Meta’s scale and resources. In the first quarter of this year, Meta reached 3.8 billion people through one of the company’s services — Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus. That is a head start that few others in the world can match. A single link from any of those services would bring millions of users directly.
Following the lukewarm reception of the “metaverse,” Zuckerberg has been forced to reduce the focus on his grand, game-like vision, at least in the short term. The metaverse investment remains, but is likely to take longer to break through than initially calculated. As a result, the product portfolio has been broadened with both AI initiatives and entirely new products, now including Threads. This allows the company to test more areas in parallel, while the larger metaverse can quietly simmer in the background.
Technically speaking, Threads is a walk in the park for Meta. The company could have launched the service at any point over the past ten years. But under the volatile leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter appears more vulnerable than it has been in many years. An alternative from Meta can therefore serve as a safe harbor. Meta is large, well-resourced, and long-term in its thinking. The timing is therefore perfect. And Threads looks set to become the biggest threat Twitter has faced so far.
