Threads App from Meta’s Threads Rises to the Top of the App Store Rankings

On July 5th, when Threads was introduced by Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, made his first appearance on Twitter in 11 years. In his tweet, which contained no words, Zuckerberg used the Spider-Man pointing meme to playfully mock Elon Musk. Little did he know, the choice of that meme was surprisingly fitting for the Facebook founder.

As TechCrunch highlighted, Instagram’s launch of Threads backfired on another app of the same name. Threads, a Slack alternative that has been around since 2019, saw more than 880,000 downloads on iOS between July 6 and July 12, according to an estimate shared by Data.ai. Threads became the 52nd most downloaded App Store program worldwide when it had a “few downloads” prior to that time period. In a few European Union countries, such as Germany, Spain and Italy, it even managed to crack the top 10. This might have something to do with Instagram threads not being available in the EU, and Meta has since started blocking people. who try to access the service via VPN.

Additionally, Threads (a Slack alternative) owns a “significant” share of threads.com’s traffic. In fact, the company has since added a badge to its homepage stating that it is “not affiliated with Instagram.” You can find a similar disclaimer on Twitter. “We have no connection to Meta. But welcome to stay!” the company profile says.

Of course, Meta and Threads aren’t the first companies to use the same branding. As TechCrunch points out, there are more than a few companies called Lightyear, including a solar vehicle startup, an online course platform, and two separate fintech companies. Still, it’s a funny coincidence when you think about Threads, a workplace chat app founded by Rousseau Kazi, a former Facebook product manager. Oh, and Meta previously used an Instagram companion app also confusingly called Threads. I think there is no originality left in Silicon Valley.