Agencies : Meta’s new text-based social media platform, Threads, created a lot of buzz at the time of its launch. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Meta was planning to launch a Twitter alternative soon and by July 5, we were all introduced to Threads. People, who were apparently miffed with Elon Musk’s Twitter for imposing a rate limit and various other changes, flocked to Threads and the app had a whopping 100 million sign-ups within 5 days of launch. Threads was also reported to be one of the fastest growing social media sites. However, as per recent reports, less than half of users are actively using Threads since signing up. 

Threads loses more than half of users

A Reuters report revealed that more than half of users have stopped using Threads since its launch. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the same during an internal town hall and said that even though the retention on the Threads app was ‘better than what the executives had expected, but it was not perfect’. Reuters cited its source as the audio of the internal call that they had accessed. 

“Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” Zuckerberg said.

The Meta CEO, however, doesn’t think that the drop in the users is exceptional. The report quotes him adding that the drop in users was ‘normal’ and that he was optimistic about retention rates improving as the company added more features to the app. 

“Meta is looking at adding more retention-driving hooks to entice users to return to the app, like making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads,” Chief Product Officer Chris Cox was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Mark Zuckerberg on Threads’ future

Earlier, a Business Insider report had revealed that Zuckerberg, during the second-quarter earnings conference call with analysts, said that the team has a lot of ‘basic work to do’ on Threads including ‘building and experimenting with features that users like’.

The Meta CEO also said that while a lot of people might be fond of an experience, they (Meta team) need to keep making the experience better so that users continue using the platform and know that Meta is ‘getting to a good place with Threads’. 

He added that a lot of basic functionality work is yet to be completed when it comes to Threads and once the team feels like they are ‘in a very good place on that, he is highly confident that they will be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow’.

Earlier this month, reports had suggested that Meta might plan on monetising Threads after reaching a billion users. Shedding some light on monetisation plans, Zuckerberg said that once Threads has hundreds of millions of people using it, they will think of monetisation.