By Ghadeer Ghloum
KUWAIT: We recently witnessed the release of a new app by Meta called Threads. Threads initially experienced unexpected success, with more than 100 million signups. However, we now notice a significant decline in users of the application, which raises questions about the reason for this decline after such a remarkable start. Management Consultant and Trainer Ahmad Ndoom shared his perspective with Kuwait Times to examine and understand the reasons behind Thread’s decline. Ndoom started by raising the question: "How come these platforms offer their services for free?
The platforms are giving us so much content for free — what do they get from us in return?” He then gives the answer, saying: "It seems like that the biggest battle in today’s market is obtaining the customer’s attention, and the heroes in these battles are social media platforms. They have our attention for several hours every day, and we cannot seem to get enough of them. Threads is trying to win our attention and pull us away from its direct competitor — Twitter, or X.” Ndoom takes the matter a bit further, asking: "Will Threads succeed?” "It seems that the future does not hold good news for Threads.
Meta succeeded in taking active users from its other platform – Instagram – and convincing them to take a look at Threads. However, they did not succeed in providing an answer to ‘why?’ They did not have enough reasons for the platform to exist. Each platform needs to have an edge; needs to provide a reason why you use it. The ‘why’ needs to be a special feature, and it seems like Threads still does not have this. Unless Meta comes up with a new feature that is not available on any other platform, it will remain a tough challenge to keep people excited about it,” Ndoom said.
Ndoom supported his hypothesis by explaining through evidence and data. He began by highlighting the importance of attracting attention, which is the key for any platform’s success, as mentioned earlier. "In terms of attention, there are two numbers that are important. First, the number of daily active users, and second is how much time an average user spends on the platform. Acquiring the first million users is the hardest, because these platforms have a snowball pattern of growth. For new platforms, it is necessary to provide a new feature that allows users to communicate and share content in a way that is not available on other platforms,” he pointed out.
Moreover, Ndoom distinguishes between two types of social media users — Curious users and real users. "In the user acquisition battle, Threads seemed to win, and win big. In less than a week, Threads acquired more than 100 million users, even though it did not offer any new features. Yet, the reason for its success was not organic, and by organic, I mean it did not succeed because it offered something new. It succeeded because of the fame of its sister companies (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp),” he said.
"Meta was very smart, making it extremely easy for Instagram users to create an account on Threads. However, the amount of time a user spends on Thread went down from 23 minutes to 6 minutes, and the number of daily active users also went down from 49 million to 23.6 million, according to Similarweb, a traffic analysis firm. This is a bad indication, and shows that users are not necessarily impressed with this new platform. There was an interest in it because people were curious. But after using it for a couple of days, people stopped using it and went back to the platforms they were on before,” Ndoom noted.