NEW YORK: Meta Platforms executives are heavily focused on boosting retention on their new Twitter rival Threads, after the app lost more than half of its users in the weeks following its buzzy launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday.
Meta Unveils ‘Hooks’ for Threads
Meta Unveils ‘Hooks’ for Threads-“Retention of users on the text-based app exceeded executive expectations, though it was not flawless,” stated Zuckerberg during an internal company town hall, with Reuters having access to the audio.
“Obviously, with over 100 million sign-ups, it would be great if a significant portion stuck around. We’re not there yet,” he added.
Zuckerberg considers the drop-off to be normal, expressing confidence that retention will improve as the company introduces more features to the app, such as a desktop version and search functionality.
Meta plans to implement additional “retention-driving hooks” to entice users back to the app. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox mentioned one such idea of enabling Instagram users to view important Threads.
A company spokesperson refrained from commenting on the meeting.
These remarks from the executives follow Meta’s impressive revenue growth forecast, signaling a comeback for a company previously met with skepticism due to its substantial spending on the metaverse while ad sales declined.
As a result of this disclosure, Meta’s shares surged by 8% on Thursday.During the call, Zuckerberg assured employees that their work on augmented and virtual reality technology for the metaverse was on track, although not significantly ahead of schedule.
He emphasized the need for Meta to invest in this technology early to compete with rivals like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, given their expertise in building operating systems for existing products. Zuckerberg predicted that mass adoption of metaverse technologies would occur in the 2030s.
Zuckerberg and Cox also highlighted the release of an AI model named Llama 2, which Meta made freely available for commercial use to developers with fewer than 700 million users.
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Cox reported that the model received over 150,000 download requests within a week of its release.
Meta Unveils ‘Hooks’ for Threads-Regarding the potential “cage match” against Elon Musk, Zuckerberg expressed uncertainty about whether it would come to fruition.