The rivalry between billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has recently reached new heights, intensifying their competition.
Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, the proprietor of Facebook and Instagram, has teased a new application designed to rival Twitter, by providing an alternative platform for instant online dialogues.
The application, dubbed Threads, is slated to be launched this coming Thursday as indicated in the App Store listing.
It appears to share many features with Twitter, with the App Store description focusing on conversations, and the chance to grow a community and engage with individuals of similar interests.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” the description says.
“Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”
Meta’s move occurs amidst a period of upheaval at Twitter, which recently suffered a system outage. This was subsequently followed by news that the platform had temporarily placed constraints on the number of tweets its users could peruse whilst on the app.
Musk, the billionaire owner of the platform, explained that these limitations were put in place “to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.”
Reacting to the introduction of Threads on Monday, Musk posted: “Thank goodness they’re so sanely run,” mimicking supposed remarks by Meta officials that seemed to mock Musk’s unpredictable conduct.
After privatizing Twitter in October, Musk has completely transformed the social media platform, causing a stir among advertisers and some of its most notable users.
He is currently exploring strategies to rejuvenate the platform’s growth. On Monday, Twitter revealed plans to charge for TweetDeck, a service that lets users manage and keep track of the accounts they follow with ease.
Twitter is also trying to invade Meta’s territory. In May, Twitter introduced encrypted messaging and announced that calls would be next, innovations that could potentially rival Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, both of which are Meta-owned.
The competition between Musk and Zuckerberg could soon be physical, not just business-related.
Just last month, the two tycoons contemplated a cage fight, with the Las Vegas stadium that hosts the Ultimate Fighting Championship seemingly the top pick for the venue.
