Meta’s Twitter/X rival Threads is growing at a stable pace. The social network now has more than 150 million monthly active users — up from 130 million in February — Mark Zuckerberg mentioned during the company’s Q1 2024 earnings call.
Since the last quarterly earnings call, Threads has notably taken steps towards integrating with ActivityPub, the decentralized protocol that powers networks like Mastodon. In March, the company allowed U.S.-based users over 18 to connect their accounts to the Fediverse so their posts would show up on other servers.
The company also plans to release its API to a wide set of developers by June, allowing them to build experiences around the social network. However, it is still not clear if Threads will allow developers to make full-fledged third-party clients.
Last week, Meta launched its AI chatbot across Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Threads was a notable exclusion from this list, possibly because of the lack of native DM functionality.
On Wednesday, Threads also released a test feature to let users auto-archive their posts after a period of defined time. They can also archive or unarchive individual posts and make them public.
Threads is roughly nine months old, and Meta has steadily built out the audience. However, it is strictly not an X alternative, as Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said in October that Threads won’t “amplify news on the platform.” But Meta’s social network is still gaining steam. Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that according to app analytics firm Apptopia, Threads now has more daily active users in the U.S. than X.
