Good timing: Threads rolls out desktop website just as Twitter/X cuts back on user-favorite features

Meta’s Threads, which launched last month, will introduce a web version of the app. The site, Threads.net, is set to launch in the coming days, a spokesperson told CNBC.

Threads made a fairly epic debut in July, with more than 100 million users joining in just five days. But the drop-off, which Mark Zuckerberg called “normal,” was just as sweeping, as the app lost more than half of its users in the weeks that followed. Daily users are still down about 75% since the launch. (However, a report from The Associated Press shows that Threads is still the third most-downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store this week.)

“Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” Zuckerberg told employees at an internal company town hall, as reported by Reuters. Still, the Facebook mogul said he was looking at ways to retain users.

As X, formerly Twitter, continues to spiral, advertisers and influencers seem increasingly interested in working with Threads. Rachel Tipograph, CEO of marketing technology firm MikMak, told CNBC that the company is looking at new opportunities and that there is an ease about using the Threads platform that makes it appealing to advertisers. “It’s the most instant onboarding experience I’ve ever experienced in the history of my career, and my entire career has been in social,” Tipograph said.

Last month, top brands like McDonald’s, TMZ, and Red Bull were getting more engagement on Threads than on X for the same posts.

The desktop version definitely comes at an opportune time, as concerns about X continue to surge. In addition to hate speech surging since Elon Musk took over the platform, the billionaire continues to announce plans to alter the site in ways users don’t like, and even worry could be potentially harmful.

In July, Musk announced the site would limit the number of tweets users could read in a day, in a move that aimed to increase signups for Twitter Blue, where users would have the ability to view more tweets. The move led to outages on TweetDeck, a paid dashboard for social media management, and a lot of angry users.

Last week, Musk said that the ability to block users would soon be a thing of the past. This week, he confirmed plans to remove headlines and description text from links posted to X. Instead, links will display the main image from the linked site without context. Musk explained that the move would “greatly improve the aesthetics.”

While X seems to be continuing its downward spiral, social media users are definitely looking at Threads. The question is, will they use it?