Let’s say Elon Musk showed up at Mark Zuckerberg’s house, as he threatened to do, ready to fight.
“Wanna do a practice bout in your house next week?” Musk tweeted.
“No rules streetfighting,” he added. “Knock knock. … Open the door.”
Musk’s mother, Maye, tweeted “Don’t encourage this match.”
Zuckerberg didn’t back down: “Send the location,” he responded.
Musk pulled the plug, saying he needed surgery first on his neck or upper back.
Boo hoo.
Of these two, fighting in a cage, who would you root for?
Despots and democracies
This online trash talk between the two about a cage match was exasperating because they are two of the most powerful leaders in the world. Their social media platforms can change the course of despots and democracies.
Musk’s Twitter, now questionably renamed X, and Zuckerberg’s Facebook spread false information. They help put local news operations in many communities out of business. They can ruin reputations in a moment.
Anybody else lives their whole life trying to avoid doing something stupid so they don’t look like embarrassed fools on Facebook and Twitter.
Not these guys. They come with their own shame.
‘Project 92′
Musk issued his fight challenge to Zuckerberg right before Zuckerberg unveiled “Project 92.” That’s the secret code name for Zuckerberg’s bare-bones version of an imitation Twitter. It’s called Threads. It was released in early July.
I’m impressed that Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, kept the Threads project a secret.
Since he bought Twitter for $44 billion, the mercurial Musk has watched it bleed advertisers.
100 million new users?
There’s something fishy about Threads. Let’s start with the numbers. Meta pushed signup numbers hard, mostly, I think to tweak Musk.
In its first 24 hours, Threads picked up millions of users. I’ve seen several opening day signup numbers and don’t know which are accurate. Meta didn’t respond to my question about this.
After five days, it was widely reported that there were 100 million Threads users around the world.
That’s a world record for the most signups for a new app.
By the end of July, however, daily users on Threads had dropped to 13 million early adopters, The Wall Street Journal reported.
For comparison, Twitter has around 300 million users. But it’s not a fair fight, and Threads feels to me like a potential monopolistic trade practice. I’ll offer my hypothesis on that in a moment. But first there are a few things about Threads that are worth sharing.
Threads app doesn’t do a lot
First, you can’t join Threads unless you have an Instagram account.
If you decide to delete your Threads account, it also shuts down your Instagram account.
You can’t delete your posts on Threads. You can’t edit them either.
You can’t search by keyword.
You can’t send direct messages.
There’s a 500-character count, but no counter.
You can’t change your name on Instagram without changing it on Threads, and vice versa.
You can’t use it on a PC, only on smartphones.
Some of this will change as more features are rolled out. Threads is an infant, and its parent has high hopes.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said of Threads, “We’d like this to be a positive place.”
Threads’ big backup
Here’s what I haven’t seen discussed in the public square. No one seems to have a problem with the way Instagram flooded Threads to get those record signup numbers.
When it comes to collecting followers, Threads does the work for you. It’s powered by Instagram, which has 2 billion monthly users.
You can import into Threads your entire list of those you follow on Instagram with one tap on your phone. Threads didn’t build itself from scratch. It sucked in millions of users already invested in Meta products.
Molly Lopez, who runs ad agency Sparo, told The Wall Street Journal, “The superpower that Threads has that Twitter doesn’t is that it doesn’t need to learn about the 30 million users who subscribed to the platform overnight. Chances are that from their Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp activity, Threads already knows quite a bit about you.”
This is another vehicle to give Zuckerberg more power.
When is this kind of power too much power?
