The US presidential election earlier this month and the subsequent exodus of X users (“Twitter quitters”) have served as an inflection point for alternatives Threads (owned by Meta) and Bluesky. Last Thursday, Threads head Adam Mosseri reported that Threads had grown by 15M+ signups in just the first 14 days of Nov 2024 – and has been growing at a rate of 1M+ signups per day over the past 3 months. Soon after, there were reports that decentralized social platform Bluesky had reached 20M+ users and was recently the #1 app in the US iOS app store for more than a week (it’s currently #2). It raises the question as to what all this might mean for X.

For Threads, the recent surge has been a continuation of its rapid growth since its Jul 2023 launch. Within 5 days of its launch on iOS and Android in 100+ countries (although not the EU for regulatory reasons), Threads had reached 100M signups – the fastest-ever app to do so. By the 10-day mark, it had reached 150M signups.

Threads has since continued its growth (it’s currently the #4 free app in the US on iOS), boosted by international users, cross-marketing on Instagram, cross-posting of Instagram content on Threads, creator incentives, and recent election dynamics. In Mar 2024, Threads also began allowing adult users to connect their accounts to other social networks on the ActivityPub open protocol (known as the “fediverse”) so their posts show up on other servers.

Engagement may be a better gauge for Threads than signups. Despite the early signups, there have been questions as to whether Threads can sustain engagement once the novelty factor wears off. Monthly active users (MAUs) is the metric most widely available, though even MAUs may not be the best metric for engagement. Threads reached “just under” 100M MAUs in Oct 2023 (3 months after launch), 130M MAUs in Feb 2024, 150M MAUs in Apr 2024, 175M+ MAUs in Jul 2024, and 200M MAUs in Aug 2024. By early Nov 2024, during the run-up to the election, Threads was reporting 275M MAUs vs. X’s estimated 332M MAUs.

Meta has been investing in new features for Thread, such as custom feeds based on topics and profiles (currently being tested). Custom feeds during the test are being displayed in reverse chronological order. (Chronological feeds is one of the most requested features for Threads, although algorithmic feeds reportedly work better for engagement and advertisers.) Threads has also rolled out an “activity status” feature, and tested an “auto-archive” feature for posts. Mosseri has indicated that he may be open to a Threads-specific DM (direct messaging) system.

Threads is also prompting users to review their political content settings, in response to user complaints about Threads suppressing political content. (Threads has controversially sought to steer away from political news in its “For You” feed, although some say this has left a vacuum being filled by liberal conspiracy theorists.) By default, Threads users will see political content from profiles they follow but will not see political content from other profiles unless the user specifically opts in. Threads also no longer asks new users to follow their Instagram follows, since users seem to prefer a different social graph for their Threads experience.

Meta has an eye towards turning Threads into another lucrative revenue stream. It reportedly plans to launch ads on Threads in Jan 2025. The effort to monetize Threads, while controversial among users who would prefer no ads, is virtually inevitable. Threads won’t be a loss leader forever, especially with Meta’s “year of efficiency” not yet in the rearview mirror. While Meta doesn’t expect Threads “to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue,” at Threads’ current pace of growth and Meta’s advertising engine backing it, that will likely change. Meta is aiming for 1B+ users within “a few more years.”

The other social network seeing rapid growth of late, Bluesky is known for giving users control to create/select algorithms for their feeds, and set composable and stackable moderation rules at the community level. Originally affiliated with ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky is like a slimmed-down Twitter built on the open-source Authenticated Transfer Protocol (ATP or AT Protocol). ATP was built as its own protocol to enable account portability, which means it doesn’t interoperate with the open ActivityPub protocol, which Threads and Mastodon use. Bluesky is designed to work across federated servers, although the venture-backed, for-profit startup hasn’t fully implemented its decentralized model yet (among the reasons why Dorsey parted ways).

After an invite-only period with a waiting list, Bluesky finally opened up to the public in Feb 2024, and has since grown to 9M+ users in Sep 2024, 13M+ users in Oct 2024, 16M users last week, to 21M+ users today. Like Threads, Bluesky (which is currently left-leaning) has benefited from election dynamics. It has also likely benefited from Threads moderation issues that resulted in blocked user posts, deleted accounts, and lower post engagement. As of last week, Bluesky was reporting 1M+ signups per day – just like Threads – and it doesn’t appear to be slowing.

Users are reporting that Bluesky has fewer bots and more rapid follower growth than X, resulting in a bit of a gold rush right now. Part of this follower growth is due to Bluesky’s user-created “Starter Packs” that help new users get onboarded with recommended custom feeds and curated lists of users to follow. Bluesky describes Starter Packs as “personalized invites that allow you to bring friends directly into your slice of Bluesky.” (For instance, there’s a TechCrunch Starter Pack.) According to Bluesky, it has higher engagement than X, with about 30% of users posting vs. 1% for X.

Bluesky’s decentralized (non-blockchain) design means that it operates differently than other platforms, with some considering it the anti-big tech option. Bluesky has had its own custom feeds feature since mid-2023, allowing users to select from an open marketplace of feed algorithms. While Bluesky has a moderation team, users can also subscribe to other moderation services. Bluesky plans to rely on subscription-based premium features for monetization, rather than data-based advertising. In contrast to X, Bluesky announced recently that it has “no intention” of training AI models with user data. It also allows for domain-based user handles, which is a form of “blue check”-style validation and/or self-identification as part of a community.

X has struggled with growth since its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. Advertising revenue has fallen dramatically from $4.5B in full-year 2021 to just $114M in Q2 2024. Adtech has long been an area where Twitter has lagged, and the turmoil following Musk’s acquisition only exacerbated the problem, causing advertisers to shift their dollars elsewhere.

Many are attributing the growth of Threads and Bluesky to an exodus from X, driven by Musk’s controversial public persona and a perception of X as right-leaning. This may have been aggravated by X recently allowing blocked users to view public posts, and announcing it would sell user data for AI training. Notably, while X has seen users depart, a spike in downloads around the election has helped it hold steady in terms of users. Still, this is still far from the growth that Threads and Bluesky have been enjoying of late.

Who will be “the next Twitter”? While Twitter remains the leading “digital public square” app, Threads is nearing its size and Bluesky is growing fast. (There’s also Mastodon, Nostr, Spill, cross-posting apps Openvibe and Croissant, and others.) Perhaps the right question is which platform will move the fastest in terms of meeting user needs, and the answer seems to be Bluesky right now. (Bluesky had custom feeds and DMs well before Threads.) The irony is that Meta has positioned itself as the champion of openness, and it may find itself falling behind Bluesky’s open platform.

Oct 13 2023 (3 Shifts): Is X still the “digital town square”?

Jul 21 2023 (3 Shifts): Will Meta’s Threads eventually supplant Twitter?