Threads could hurt Twitter, unlikely to do much for Meta, Barron’s says

The chattering classes are abuzz about the launch of Threads, a new social-media platform from Meta Platforms (META), parent of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Threads, which launched on Wednesday night, is a near carbon copy of Twitter, a place to post and discuss content and ideas, mostly in text form, Eric J. Savitz writes in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Threads already has more than 30 million downloads, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Investors bid up Meta’s stock on the launch, suggesting they think Threads might crush Twitter. It just might, and yet the market is still overestimating Thread’s importance to Meta’s own business-and its stock, the author says. Meta has a habit of copying ideas created by rivals, the publication notes. Stories duplicates a feature first created on Snap ‘s (SNAP) Snapchat. Reels mimic TikTok. Now, Facebook is taking direct aim at Twitter, which has been struggling to regain its financial footing since Tesla’s (TSLA) Elon Musk paid $44B for the company in October.