Threads, Instagram’s Twitter clone, had a successful first week of operation, surpassing 30 million users in the first day and reaching 100 million signups within five days.
And as of yesterday, Data.ai data showed that Threads had received 150 million downloads.
However, as a result of Instagram’s attempt to profit from the Twitter snafu, another wholly unrelated service has unintentionally gained attention.
In the days after the unveiling of its new moniker, Threads, a Slack substitute that debuted in secret with funding from Sequoia Capital back in 2019, saw a notable boost in website traffic. This is partly due to the fact that Instagram’s incarnation is on the less seductive Threads.net domain name, whereas Threads (the Slack counterpart) owns the Threads.com domain name (even if the app doesn’t yet have a web interface).
This gave the Slack alternative Threads the opportunity to poke fun at Instagram.
In any case, this confusion caused a significant increase in downloads for Threads (the Slack replacement) in the week after Instagram’s Threads launch. According to Data.ai statistics released to TechCrunch between July 6 and July 12, Threads had “few downloads” before this time and over 880,000 downloads worldwide on iOS alone.
It was also third in the “business” category and the 52nd most downloaded app overall. It’s interesting to note that the top three markets where it had the highest App Store rankings were Germany, Spain, and Italy, where it had an average ranking of 10th place among the three nations that week for app downloads.
This was most likely due to the uncertainty that resulted from Instagram’s Threads not yet being accessible in the European Union.
The situation is the same on Android, where Threads is already showing more over 1 million downloads.
Because of everything mentioned above, Threads has been forced to slap “we are not associated with Instagram” notices all over its website and App Store listing.
It is not unusual for several companies to share the same brand name. Numerous businesses go by the name of Lightyear, including two distinct fintechs in the United Kingdom, an electric vehicle company in the Netherlands, and a telecom service procurement service in New York. Additionally, there is a second firm called Threads that operates a chat-based shopping platform from the United Kingdom.
Given that Instagram previously had a companion app called Threads, which it debuted in 2019 and shut down two years later, Threads’ (the Slack alternative) predicament is not particularly novel.
In a stock statement sent to TechCrunch, Threads co-founder and CEO Rousseau Kazi stated that “Threads is a powerful word and an internet native term.” “Using threads is the greatest approach to remain in touch with your [.network] or [.company] across numerous platforms. Given this, it is not surprising that Meta picked a strong name to sum up their vision for the town square.
Notably, Kazi spent six years in a product management position at Facebook (before it changed into Meta).
Kazi said, “Zuck (Mark Zuckerberg), Adam Mosseri (currently the CEO of Instagram), and the team are without a doubt some of the best mentors and geniuses I’ve had the opportunity to work with and learn from.
It’s important to note that the increased traffic and downloads that resulted from the uncertainty are unlikely to have resulted in new customers, as the disgruntled users quickly recognized that this was not what they were searching for.
Although the startup’s increased profile may be seen as excellent free publicity.
Businesses will probably need to include Instagram’s Threads into their social media strategy in the future, though, if or when it acquires more traction.
Additionally, as businesses would have to oversee two completely different communication services bearing the exact same name, this could be perplexing for (potential) Threads consumers (of the Slack substitute).
TechCrunch was informed by Threads that it is the owner of the trademark for its name, though it declined to comment more or say whether it intended to take legal action against Instagram or its parent company Meta.
