Threads

Meta launched Threads, a text-sharing app built by the Instagram team, on iOS and Android in more than 100 countries on its first day. Users log in with their Instagram account and keep their existing username and verification, and posts can be up to 500 characters long. Meta also said it planned to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol.⁠[1]

Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads that the app had reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend after launch, only five days after it went live.⁠[2]

From August 9, Threads added a Following feed, automatic post translation and sharing to Instagram direct messages, among other features; on August 22 it began rolling out a logged-in web version that supports posting, viewing the feed and interacting.⁠[1]

About three months after launch, Meta said Threads had just under 100 million monthly active users. Zuckerberg said that if the company kept at it for a few more years, Threads had a good chance of achieving its vision of reaching a billion users.⁠[3]

Zuckerberg announced a test making some Threads content available in MastodonMastodonMastodon is free and open-source decentralized social networking software created by Eugen Rochko in 2016; based on the ActivityPub protocol, it forms a federated network of independently run servers. Its user base grew sharply in 2022, and Rochko stepped down as CEO in November 2025.Open the full entry and other fediverse apps. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the first step was letting users of ActivityPub clients follow Threads users, with the ability for Threads users to follow accounts on ActivityPub servers to follow later.⁠[4]

Threads expanded to countries across Europe. Users in the EU can create a profile linked to Instagram, or use Threads without a profile to browse, search, share and report content, though without a profile they cannot post or interact.⁠[1]

Threads opened a fediverse sharing beta to users aged 18 and older with public profiles in a few countries, including the US; likes from the fediverse were aggregated on Threads, but replies and follows were not yet visible.⁠[1]

Zuckerberg said on Meta’s first-quarter earnings call that Threads had more than 150 million monthly users, an increase of about 20 million since February of that year.⁠[5]

Threads opened its API to developers, who can use it to publish posts, fetch their own content, manage replies, and access analytics such as views, likes, replies, reposts and quotes.⁠[6]

Threads users who enable fediverse sharing can see and like replies from people on other servers such as Mastodon within the app, and the beta expanded to more than 100 countries.⁠[1]

Threads reached 200 million monthly active users in August 2024. In November of that year, Mosseri announced that monthly active users had passed 275 million, an increase of about 75 million in roughly three months.⁠[7]

In the last week of April 2025, Zuckerberg announced that Threads had reached 350 million monthly active users.⁠[8]

When Threads launched, Meta did not own threads.com, so the service used threads.net. Meta acquired threads.com in September 2024 and in April 2025 made it the default domain, with threads.net forwarding to the new address.⁠[9]

In July 2025 Threads launched direct messaging, a long-requested feature, as part of the app’s move away from reliance on Instagram.⁠[10][11]

Meta named longtime executive Connor Hayes head of Threads, reporting directly to Adam Mosseri, with a start in mid-September of that year. Hayes had served as Meta’s vice president of product for generative AI and was on the team that built the first version of Threads in 2023.⁠[11]

Mosseri announced that as of a few weeks earlier, Threads had more than 400 million monthly active users, about 50 million more than in April.⁠[8]

In October 2025 Meta said Threads had 150 million daily active users. The same month Threads introduced “ghost posts,” which disappear after 24 hours and send responses to direct messages.⁠[12][10]

Data from market intelligence firm SimilarwebSimilarwebSimilarweb Ltd. is a digital data and analytics company headquartered in Givatayim, Israel, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It estimates visits to and usage of websites and apps worldwide, providing subscription software, data APIs, and advisory services to businesses, investment firms, and developers of AI products.Open the full entry showed that as of January 7, 2026, Threads had about 141.5 million daily active users on iOS and Android, above X’s roughly 125 million on mobile; on the web, however, X’s daily visits remained far higher than those of Threads.⁠[12]

Meta announced it was gradually expanding ads on Threads to all users worldwide, with low initial ad delivery and a full rollout that could take months. Threads had begun testing ads in the US and Japan about a year earlier and opened to advertisers globally in April 2025.⁠[13]

In February 2026 Threads launched “Dear Algo,” which lets users ask through public posts for more or less of a topic in their feed; in April it launched Live Chats for real-time conversation during events; and from May messaging became available on the web.⁠[10]

Meta announced that Threads had reached 500 million monthly active users, an increase of about 100 million in roughly ten months. At the same time, Communities came out of beta with a new Communities Hub and community icons, and a private “Your Algo” setting for adjusting topic preferences for one, three or seven days launched in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.⁠[14][10]

Daring FireballDaring FireballDaring Fireball is a technology blog founded in 2002 and written independently by John Gruber, known for commentary on Apple and related technology topics; it is funded by weekly exclusive sponsorships and produces the podcast The Talk Show.Open the full entry author John GruberJohn GruberJohn Gruber is an American writer, the founder and author of the technology blog Daring Fireball, the creator of the lightweight markup language Markdown, and the host of the podcast The Talk Show.Open the full entry wrote that he sees more interesting posts on X than on Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon combined; he considered Threads the only network comparable to X in size, but said its timeline was full of engagement bait, with much activity and little action. This is his personal opinion.⁠[15]

Threads: Official website: https://www.threads.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[9]