Christopher MimsJul 15, 2023

There’s been a lot of chatter over the past week about what’s happening to Twitter’s traffic and engagement, as well as that of Threads, and whether the two are related and ~what’s it all mean for the future of social media~

This is my attempt to cut through some of the noise, with actual data – and empirical observations.

All derives from this week’s column in the @WSJ

1/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-how-twitter-could-become-irrelevant-b2b027af

Here’s How Twitter Could Become Irrelevant

Threads, from Instagram, has many distinct qualities that make it the first credible threat to Elon Musk’s vision of what a social network should be

WSJ
Show threadChristopher MimsJul 15, 2023

Here’s the conclusion, for those who want the headline and then would rather move on with their lives.

Traffic to Twitter appears to be declining over time. Threads seems to be responsible for a little of that decline, when it first launched. But really, what’s happening is a story of long-term decline in engagement with Twitter. 2/

Show threadChristopher MimsJul 15, 2023

Another conclusion:

Much has been made of the surge and sudden drop in usage of Threads.

If you’ve never looked at the chart of the usage of a service when it goes supersonic, you might naively think this means Threads is already in trouble.

But a saw-tooth pattern where adoption is followed by a decline in usage – and then subsequent waves of re-engagement – is normal.

3/

Show threadBrennan StehlingJul 17, 2023
@mimsical Another possibility is that Threads has legitimized moving discussions to a Twitter alternative and many have finally tried out options like BlueSky and Mastodon. People will go where the people are, as Marques Brownlee recently discussed on the Waveform Podcast. I've found the people I am interested have moved to Mastodon.
Show threadChristopher Mims
@brennansv yeah he's certainly right about that
Jul 18, 2023 at 1:27pmWeb
Show threadBrennan StehlingJul 18, 2023
@mimsical The old line was, “Fish where the fish are." And for someone like Marques Brownlee and any person or brand which wants attention this is the only winning strategy. If a big chain restaurants is promoting a limited time special menu I'd expect Twitter, Threads, IG and FB would be high on the list. What would be great is for Mastodon servers to get some funding from ad campaigns without compromising user privacy or filling my feed with ads which I do not want to see.