Athira Sethu
Kochi, 14 November 2024
Meta Platforms plans to roll out ads on the social media app Threads as early as next year, according to The Information.
Threads, launched in July 2023, was created as a rival to X, previously known as Twitter-which created the competition to attract users at the time when uncertainty surrounded Twitter after it had been recently acquired by Elon Musk.
Since the launch, Threads has been increasing speedily to 275 million monthly active users as announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The application now plans to allow a small number of advertisers to start running ads beginning in January. This is a move spearheaded by a team from the Instagram advertising division.
Yet Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said last October that the company does not expect Threads to significantly impact its revenues next year. A Meta spokesperson further underscored how there are no ads nor any kind of monetization features on Threads for now, as the company’s focus is on providing value to users first.
Ads may attract advertisers who have lost faith in their ability to advertise on X, which has begun losing money under Musk’s stewardship. This has resulted in a loss in the last couple of months’ advertising revenue for X, mostly due to advertising brands who are apprehensive about appearing next to toxic and hateful content that were curtailed or removed while the platform was operated otherwise. Its second case also filed lawsuits against several of the largest brands as they attempted to blacklist the platform during the month of August, hurting its revenue even more.
The following months will come with more features in Threads, with advertisements marking one of the first steps in its monetization strategy.
