Do you remember what it was like when Threads came out? With Elon Musk turning Twitter into the proverbial dumpster fire floating down the street, the universe has been crying out for some return to normalcy and a platform that replicated the simple genius that was the original Twitter. When Meta and Facebook announced Threads, it was the obvious successor. And almost immediately, anybody who is anybody was posting tweets linking to their Threads account. It was like we all got the same invite to hang out with Donna Kelce and Taylor Swift and eat some chicken nuggets with seemingly ranch.
But almost instantly that excitement and optimism of a true, sane alternative evaporated when everyone found out that the platform was barely usable and offered nothing that its users actually valued or wanted.
How much of a ghost town has Threads become? Yahoo has a breakdown and found that several major brands have abandoned the social media platform, not even bothering to post anything. Most notably, the NFL has posted nothing to Threads since the beginning of the regular season. No highlights, no clips, no Swifties, nothing.
The National Football League hasn’t posted anything in six weeks, before the start of the regular season. This is the nation’s most popular sports league, and it has completely abandoned Meta’s new platform. Even with its 1.9 million followers.
Among news publishers, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stopped posting to Threads 11 weeks ago, not long after the launch. CBS News hasn’t posted in five weeks.
In early August, it was noted that Threads engagement had dropped an absurd 82% since its launch, and it’s hard to imagine that has rebounded in any way with radio silence from huge brands.
Even for those who do regularly post on Threads, the lack of engagement is downright pathetic.
Take ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski for instance. Earlier this week he broke the news of Devin Vassell signing a lucrative contract extension with the San Antonio Spurs. On Twitter, Woj’s post has 7.1 million views, 1900+ replies, 5600+ retweets, and almost 25k likes. On Threads, the same news has 18 replies and 255 likes. With numbers like that, it’ll be hard for Threads to ever recapture momentum and turn into a viable platform.
On the bright side for Threads, at least they are still more relevant than Google Plus.
[Yahoo]
