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Is Threads really concerned about the rise of Bluesky?
Well, yes and no, though it depends on what exactly you mean by “concerned” in this context.
First off, to clarify the situation, Twitter clone app Bluesky, which was originally launched as an internal Twitter project, and is staffed by former Twitter employees, has jumped from 9 million users in September, to 20 million today.
Now, 20 million is still a long way off of Threads’ 275 million actives, so it’s not like Bluesky is suddenly breathing down Threads’ neck on overall popularity, while neither app is anywhere close to X, which claimed that it’s now up to 570 million monthly actives back in July.
But it does seem like Threads is at least a little concerned, based on its sudden roll-out of a heap of new updates (several of which mirror those available on Bluesky), and Instagram and Threads chief Adam Mosseri making a public statement on reports of Bluesky’s growth.
That statement doesn’t really tell you much, but the fact that Mosseri felt compelled to comment at all is interesting, considering Meta’s long-held media approach in not commenting on speculation.
So the indicators do suggest that Threads is at least monitoring the Bluesky situation, with the concern likely being the rise in momentum, and what that can mean for expanded usage.
Take, for example, Clubhouse, which rose from 600k users to 2 million in just four weeks when it became the trending app of the moment back in 2021. It then rose to 10 million users just three months later. So while, right now, Bluesky might not be a significant lure for potential Threads users overall, the risk is that as more and more influential users switch over, and continue to sing the app’s praises, it could rise from 20 million to 100 million very quickly. And while even then it wouldn’t be competing with Threads on total users, as such, that’s a heap of potential Threads users who would be signing up to a rival instead.
And that is the audience that Meta’s targeting with Threads.
Meta originally created Threads in order to gather up cast-offs from Twitter/X, who had been alienated by the changes implemented by new owner Elon Musk.
Indeed, at launch, Instagram (and Threads) chief Adam Mosseri noted that:
“We wanted to get more done [before launching Threads], but we're starting to worry that the window of opportunity was closing on us.”
That window was the market gap that had been left as people turned away from X, and were seeking an alternative. Mastodon had gained some early momentum, and Bluesky was also attracting more users. But Meta wanted to push Threads as the alternative, and snap up as many Twitter refugees as it could.