LAJFSTAJL / LIFESTYLE
EVEN TWITTER ISN'T TWITTER ANYMORE Who will monitor all the upheaval on the networks? Threads, the new social media app, had a bombastic start as a rival to Twitter, only for Elon Musk to then opt for a controversial move that no one had expected
be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet”. However, the Meta owner believes that the number of Threads users will stabilise, and he claims that will be helped by new features that are being prepared for the platform. Instagram head Adam Mosseri would explain how Threads was a “crash project” that was launched as an ex- tension of Instagram seven months ago, after the com- pany decided to attempt to take on Twitter. Originally codenamed “Project 92”, it unfolded under the utmost secrecy, to such an extent that only two people were in- timately familiar with everything it represented. Mos- seri stresses that the basic aim was to create a “friendly place” for social conversation. That ace in the hole wasn’t drawn at random, giv- en that Twitter was often accused of representing a tox- ic (non)culture of communication verging on verbal vi- olence. Creating a network that enables one to engage in conversation over pressing social issues and relevant daily topics without regretting it or crying – that sounds like a devilishly shrewd business model. Except when it’s not, because Meta has previously failed to retain users on its new projects, the top example of which is Metaverse. However, Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to be in any rush to make Threads necessarily profitable. Once the num- ber of active users stabilises and the app’s functionality improves, Meta will focus on expanding the communi- ty. “Only after that will we work on monetization. We've run this playbook with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Stories, Reels, and more,” he would conclude, adding that this is as good of a start as they could have hoped for. It could be concluded from everything mentioned that it was more important to create a “boom” than to actually outdo Twitter. To be fair, even Twitter isn’t Twit- ter anymore. While panic was slowly spreading through Zuckerberg’s ranks, Musk decided to implement a cra- zy idea: in an almost mercurial move, he changed the name of Twitter to X. We don’t know what could have compelled him to abandon the company’s famous blue bird logo and re- place it with a new one represented only by the letter “X”. The Twitter bird, which was named Larry after basketball legend Larry Bird, has been “pensioned off”, and there’s plenty of conjecture as to why. Musk is all but obsessed with this letter. It has regularly appeared throughout his career – Tesla Model X, SpaceX, Musk’s son is even nick- named X. A slightly more reasonable explanation is that this move forms part of an attempt to turn the existing “chat” network into an “everything app”. With the let- ter X, Musk has described an app that could combine so- cial media networking, messaging and payment servic- es, similar to popular Chinese app WeChat. But maybe the most important question of all is one that no one has asked: how many social network- ing options is really too many? In a world in which end- less scrolling is the new holy scripture, we seem to be increasingly unable to keep pace with what’s current on every app lurking on our smartphone.
T his sweltering summer seems to have been at its most exciting – on social media. First, Zuckerberg’s Meta launched Threads which had the perfect opportunity to inscribe itself as a legend of our digital age: with 30 million people having joined it within the first 24 hours, mak- ing it the application with the largest number of down- loads in the shortest period! It even massively outper- formed ChatGPT, which was downloaded a million times in the first five days. Threads users included an impressive number of brands, celebrities, journalists with integrity and other prominent individuals. Even passionate Twitterers like Bill Gates, Shakira and Oprah Winfrey didn’t hesitate in joining Threads. However, following the initial excite- ment, it is no longer attracting as much attention. Users downloaded the app, had a look at what was on it, creat- ed profiles – and then large swathes of them abandoned the network never to return. According to the claim of Reuters, almost half of users who originally created pro- files on this network have never appeared on it again. This was recently admitted by Zuckerberg himself, who stated that his new platform has lost more than half of its users. Speaking to employees, he said: "If you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would
Prema navodima „Rojtersa“, gotovo polovina onih korisnika koji su prvobitno kreirali profile na ovoj mreži nije se Reuters, almost half of users who originally created profiles on this network have never appeared on it again više pojavila According to the claim of
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