Meta teases new app Threads to rival Twitter

Meta unveiled its latest app, Threads, which is set to compete with Elon Musk's Twitter. Yahoo Finance's Seana Smith, Pras Subramanian, and Anjalee Khemlani discuss Threads' July 6 launch and how it will fit into the latest generation of social media platforms.

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SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. We're here with some of the top trending stories of the day. Pras Subramanian, Anjalee Khemlani here to help us break it all down. And guys, I want to first start off with Meta. It's been a top trending ticker on our site all day. A lot of the gains today have to do with the excitement surrounding tomorrow. And that's all about Instagram's new competitor to Twitter. It's called Threads.

Lots of talk about whether or not this is going to be a success. But the timing of it, very interesting because we've been talking a lot about the trouble that Twitter has been going through ever since Elon Musk took over the helm-- took over ownership of the company. So timing maybe they could use that to their advantage. What exactly this is going to look like and how this is going to appeal to some of their users is the big question.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Yeah. And I think about it in context of what we've seen happen since Elon took over Twitter, right? We've seen this rush to other sites, like Post. like Mastodon, right? Journalists are trying to find a new home essentially.

And you see on your screen like all the different competitors essentially. And so none have come out really as strong leaders, I would say. And Twitter still rules. So do they have a chance considering-- Bluesky is Jack Dorsey's. But do they have a chance considering that they're already an established tech firm, and they could really launch in that space.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I mean, I think the timing is just perfect, given the fact that everyone's sort of looking for a new alternative to Twitter. It's the rate limits, Elon just being Elon, all kinds of mismanagement, possibly their Twitter. You know, Zuckerberg the guy never admitted he didn't like or he would copy anyone.

And I think this is actually a good time because look at the sort of dynamics here-- Tons of users of Instagram easy sign up there. I understand it's a separate app, which is not always the best. But I think it's a kind of a slam dunk right now for people looking for an alternative to Twitter. And Threads seems like it's a pretty good idea from a timing point of view.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, from a timing point of view, certainly a good idea, exactly like you said. Zuckerberg a lot of times looks elsewhere for some of his ideas. At least lately, we talk a lot about Reels. How well that has done that. Has certainly been mentioned in a number of analyst notes. A more recently, very similar to what we saw at TikTok, what we do see at TikTok, certainly that has paid off for Meta.

So I think there's a lot of excitement around what this could potentially look like given the fact that there are so many problems, so many issues at Twitter. We saw a jump of just about 3% today in the stock. But I think really getting it out there and, like you guys said, just in terms of this being a separate app and getting people to download that app and use it and really prove as to why it's valuable, that's going to be critical at this point.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: If they don't already run into the exhaustion of people like me who have already been downloading every single other app out there.

SEANA SMITH: And people limiting their time on social media too.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's the part of it.