Why the Early Success of Threads May Crash Into Reality Mark Zuckerberg has used Meta’s might to push Threads to a fast start — but that may only work up to a point. ......... The year was 2011 and Google had just rolled out a social network called Google+, which was aimed as its “Facebook killer.” Google thrust the new site in front of many of its users who relied on its search and other products, expanding Google+ to more than 90 million users within the first year. .......... But by 2018, Google+ was relegated to the ash heap of history. .......... dislodge Twitter and make Threads the prime app for real-time, public conversations. ......... the numbers that Threads racked up “objectively impressive and unprecedented.” .......... Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, has appeared agitated by Threads’ momentum. With 100 million people, Threads is quickly surging toward some of Twitter’s last public user numbers. Twitter disclosed it had 237.8 million daily users in July 2022, four months before Mr. Musk bought the company and took it private. ......... On Sunday, Mr. Musk called Mr. Zuckerberg a “cuck” on Twitter. Then he challenged Mr. Zuckerberg to a contest to measure a specific body part and compare whose was larger, alongside an emoji of a ruler. Mr. Zuckerberg has not responded. ............ (Before Threads was announced, Mr. Musk separately dared Mr. Zuckerberg to fight a “cage match.”) ......... What Mr. Musk lacks at Twitter, Mr. Zuckerberg has in abundance at Meta: enormous audiences. More than three billion users regularly visit Mr. Zuckerberg’s constellation of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. .......... Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said in a Threads post on Monday that there was a running list of new features to add to the new app that people have requested. “They say, ‘make it work, make it great, make it grow,’” he wrote, adding, “I promise we will make this thing great.” ............ Some saw Google+ as something that was forced on them while they were just trying to gain access to their Gmail. .......... Google+ mainly defined itself by “what it wasn’t — i.e. Facebook.” ........... Of course Mr. Zuckerberg could pull a Bill Gates with Threads. Mr. Gates, a founder of Microsoft, built his empire on Windows, the operating system that powered a generation of personal computers — and then successfully used that scale to crush competitors. ............. Once Windows dominated PCs, Mr. Gates famously bundled other products with the software for free. When he did that in 1995 by packaging the web browser Internet Explorer with Windows, Internet Explorer soon turned into the default browser on millions of computers, overtaking the then-dominant browser, Netscape, in just four years. .
A.I. Could Solve Some of Humanity’s Hardest Problems. It Already Has. Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of DeepMind, discusses how A.I. systems can accelerate scientific research. .
Why I Regret Debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo on why it’s a bad idea to debate conspiracy theorists. .
Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Know Whether He’s Coming or Going
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Desperate to Debate: Why a G.O.P. Candidate Is Offering $20 for $1 Donations The candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the first primary debate. ..... the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and his top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. .
