Recently, the news of Threads’ daily active users (DAUs) number inching closer to its rival, X‘s(formerly Twitter) number, made headlines. The app reportedly saw 115.1 million DAUs on Android and iOS combined. Meanwhile, X witnessed a 15.2 percent year-on-year (YoY) decline in its DAUs growth, bringing the number to 132 million. As Threads gains popularity, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has reportedly announced in an internal memo that he will be handing over his day-to-day responsibilities of Threads to Connor Hayes, a Meta executive.
According to a report by Axios, citing an internal company memo, Meta has named Hayes the Head of Threads, taking over responsibilities of the app’s day-to-day operations from Mosseri, who has been serving as the Head of Instagram since October 2018.
While announcing the move, Mosseri reportedly wrote in a staff memo that taking Threads’ maturity into account, the company believes that a “dedicated app lead” is needed, someone who can focus solely on the social media platform, “helping” it move ahead. Hayes will reportedly assume the Head of Threads position by mid-September. He will answer directly to Mosseri, while all other product managers, engineers, designers, data scientists, and user experience researchers at Threads are said to report to Hayes. The report added that Threads’ data engineers, however, will continue to report through Brad Ruderman, Senior Director of Data Engineering at Meta.
Meta launched Threads in July 2023 to rival Elon Musk’s X. Now, after over two years of its launch, Threads is getting a new head who has previously held several executive positions at Meta, primarily managing its various products. This indicates that the US-based tech giant is starting to give more importance to its micro blogging platform.
However, what is interesting here is that, until now, Hayes was serving as the Vice President (VP), Product of Generative AI at Meta. The executive held this position for over 2 years. Bringing a former AI product executive to lead Threads signals that more generative AI features could make their way to the social media platform.
The move also comes as Threads, Meta’s microblogging platform, has reportedly started gaining traction. According to a recent report by TechCrunch, citing data from Similarweb, Instagram’s Threads witnessing a steady growth in its DAUs number. The social media platform’s iOS and Android mobile apps, together, saw 115.1 million DAUs, up 127.8 percent YoY. Meanwhile, its primary competitor, X witnessed a fall of 15.2 percent in its YoY growth, reaching 132 million DAUs. While X is still far ahead, Threads seems to be bridging the gap between the two fast, considering it is only a two year old platform.
