Instagram’s Threads bursts out of the gate with more than 23 million sign-ups

Meta’s Twitter competitor is off to a strong start.

Threads has drawn more than 23 million sign-ups since its launch Wednesday night, according to badges that show up on Instagram when people join the new app.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads drew 10 million sign-ups in seven hours. And while that’s still far below the user bases of major social networks including Twitter and Instagram, it’s a number that gives the new platform an immediate momentum.

Still, it’s far from a sure thing that Threads will ever become bigger or more embedded in news and culture than Twitter.

“It’s easy to get a bunch of people to sign up,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a bleary-eyed video posted from what appeared to be his bed. “It’s hard to build something people want to keep using. Quite the first day.”

Threads is still a very simple platform lacking many of the features of Twitter, such as direct messaging. It also only shows people a feed of posts recommended by the app.

Mosseri said on Threads in a series of responses to people that “lots of basics” were missing but are in development, including a feed of only people a user follows. Search and hashtags are also in the works.

It’s also an open question as to how the app will be moderated. Threads launched with some features that give the user the ability to self-moderate, such as hiding specific words and phrases.

Threads also appears to be a primarily mobile experience, at least for now. Threads can be seen on desktop if a user navigates to a specific user profile or has a link, but there appears to be no way for a user to see their main feed.

Mosseri said on Threads that the “priority is the mobile apps,” but that the company is working on a web-based experience.

Back on Twitter, Threads appeared to be one of the most popular topics of discussion from Wednesday evening through Thursday morning, according to Trends24, a website that tracks trending topics and hashtags on the platform.