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TechCrunch
4 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Meta appoints generative AI VP to run Threads
In Brief Meta appointed Connor Hayes, Meta's VP of product for generative AI, to become the head of Threads, per Axios. Until now, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has been in charge of Threads. But the platform has grown into more than a side product of Instagram, necessitating additional leadership. Though Threads only launched in 2023, its mobile daily active user (DAU) numbers are fast approaching those of X, according to market intelligence provider Similarweb. Currently, Threads is averaging around 115 million DAUs on mobile, with X's DAU numbers reaching around 132 million. TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for comment. Image Credits:Similarweb
Engadget
7 days ago
- Business
- Engadget
Threads users still barely click links
Two years in, Threads is starting to look more and more like the most viable challenger to X. It passed 350 million monthly users earlier this year and Mark Zuckerberg has predicted it could be Meta's next billion-user app. But Threads still isn't sending much traffic to other websites, which could make the platform less appealing for creators, publishers and others whose businesses depend on non-Meta owned websites. According to Similarweb, a marketing intelligence firm, outbound referral traffic from Threads climbed to 28.4 million visits in June. That's a notable jump from 15.1 million visits a year ago, but still relatively tiny considering Threads is currently averaging more than 115 million users a day on its app, according to Similarweb. Regular Threads users have long suspected that Meta deprioritizes posts with links. For most of the last two years of Threads' existence the common wisdom was that users shouldn't share links, or should only share them as replies to a primary post. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, who also oversees Threads, hasn't exactly encouraged linking either. He said last year that Threads doesn't intentionally downrank links but that "we don't place much value on" them because "people don't like and comment on links much." Meta's reluctance wasn't just about users' preferences, though. The company was also concerned about how spammers and other bad actors might abuse links on the text-based platform. More recently though, Meta has changed course , and has been taking steps to surface more "good" links in recommended posts. "We've been working on making sure links are ranked properly," Mosseri said in June . "Links have been working much better for more than a month now." The company has also bolstered links on the platform by allowing users to add more links to their Threads profiles and providing link-specific analytics to its "insights" feature. "We want Threads to be a place that helps you grow your reach – even outside of Threads," Meta said in a May update. But despite these changes, Threads is still sending very little traffic to websites. Data shared by Similarweb shows that during May and June of last year — when Threads had more than 150 million monthly users — it sent just 24.8 million referrals to outside websites. During May and June of this year, that number more than doubled, rising to 51.8 million. Those numbers still suggest, though, that the majority of Threads' users are rarely, if ever, clicking on links they see on Threads. Lia Haberman, a social media marketing consultant and author of the ICYMI newsletter, said she's not surprised. "People just got trained not to look for them, not to include them, not to think about them," she tells Engadget. "You can't just flip a switch and all of a sudden expect people to embrace links." Publishers, a group that likely posts more links on Threads than anyone else, don't seem to be seeing significant traffic from Threads either. Data provided by Chartbeat, a company that provides analytics data to publishers, shows that publisher page views from Threads have nearly doubled since the start of the year, rising from 8.8 million in January to 15.1 million in June. Interestingly, according to both Similarweb and Chartbeat's data for 2025, referrals from Threads peaked in March. That month, Threads sent 28.8 million outbound referrals to websites, according to Similarweb, while Chartbeat publishers saw 25 million page views from the platform. But while the latest stats show that traffic from Threads has grown significantly over the last year, it still represents a tiny proportion of the publishers' traffic overall. According to Chartbeat, over the last year and a half Threads has consistently accounted for less than one tenth of a percent of sites' referral traffic. By comparison, Facebook referrals have hovered around 2 - 3 percent over the same period, while Google Discover has accounted for about 13 - 14 percent of referrals. Even among other "small" sources of referrals, like chatGPT, Reddit and Perplexity, Threads is only ahead of Perplexity in terms of the number of referrals it sends. Threads referrals even pale in comparison to Twitter's, which was never known as a major traffic driver even before Elon Musk's takeover of the company. In January of 2018, Twitter accounted for 3 percent of publishers' page views, according to Chartbeat data reported by the Press Gazette . By April of 2023, after Musk's takeover but before he rebranded the site to X, that number had fallen to 1.2 percent. Chartbeat's data isn't a complete picture — stats provided to Engadget were based on an analysis of 3,000 sites that have opted in to anonymized data sharing — but the slight increase in referral traffic roughly lines up with another major change Meta made this year. In January, following Mark Zuckerberg's move to end fact checking and walk back content moderation rules, Threads also ended its moratorium on recommending political content to all users. Following this change, some publishers of political news, including Newsweek , Politico and Forbes saw a spike in referrals from Threads, Digiday reported . But those gains don't seem to be universal, and it's not clear why some publishers may be benefitting more than others. "Threads is trailing significantly in traffic, subscription conversions, and overall conversion rate," compared with Bluesky and X, the Boston Globe's VP of Platforms Mark Karolian recently shared on Threads. While Threads' growth so far hasn't been hampered by its inability to drive users off-platform, it could become an increasingly important issue for Meta if it really wants to bring more creators onto the platform. The company is also getting ready to flip the switch on ads on the platform. A user base that ignores links could complicate Meta's pitch to advertisers, who are already taking a cautious approach to Threads. Meta declined to comment. Haberman says that Threads' ambivalence toward links might be symptomatic of a larger identity crisis the platform is still facing. It has a large user base, but it's not always clear who Threads is really for. It isn't known as a destination to follow breaking news, like Twitter once was, or as a place with highly-engaged subcultures, she notes. "Threads needs to have a purpose," she says. "And right now, it seems very much like a suggestion box at work where people are just filing complaints and trauma dumping." Whether smaller platforms like Threads can reliably drive traffic to websites is an increasingly urgent question. At a time when online search feels like it's getting worse , AI is rapidly replacing many searches and cannibalizing websites' search traffic. Publishers, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported , are being hit especially hard by these shifts. Threads is extremely unlikely to fill those gaps on its own, even if referral traffic vastly improves. And publishers in particular have plenty of reasons not to become too reliant on a Meta-owned platform. At the same time, there's clearly an opportunity for Threads to play a bigger role in a post-search world. That would not only benefit the creators, publishers and small business owners Meta has long courted, it could help Threads establish an identity of its own.
Daily Record
11-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Record
AliExpress launches rapid delivery service and opens doors to UK sellers
An international online retail marketplace is introducing a new hourly delivery service for selected household products, food, and beverages in the UK. Customers in Greater London can now order packaged food, drinks, and household essentials via the AliExpress app and enjoy same-day delivery on items such as cola, instant noodles and toilet paper, depending on availability and location. The service is expected to expand to other UK cities later this year in response to growing demand for convenience and faster delivery options. Open to UK suppliers and businesses In the meantime, AliExpress has announced that the platform is now open to local UK suppliers and businesses. To encourage participation, a streamlined onboarding process, one-to-one operational support, and a discounted commission rate are being offered. UK-based businesses can connect with a large customer base through AliExpress and may benefit from platform promotions and seller subsidies. For consumers, this development means the potential for quicker delivery on a wider variety of products, including furniture, lighting, garden accessories, kitchen gadgets, and more. Items shipped from local warehouses can typically arrive within three days, depending on the location and product. Bonnie Zhao, General Manager at AliExpress UK, explained: 'Local businesses and suppliers can connect with millions of shoppers on AliExpress, and consumers may benefit from faster shipping on a broader selection of products. 'This move reflects our aim to provide an upgraded service to our customers and support for local businesses.' Wide range of products AliExpress already stocks a wide range of products in European warehouses. Products marked 'Local+' are shipped from UK or EU-based warehouses, aiming to offer consumers a more convenient and locally focused shopping experience. In the past year, AliExpress has seen a significant increase in orders fulfilled from local stock, with popular items including bikes, consumer electronics, portable power stations, and power tools. Recognised for its competitive pricing, product variety, and international shipping, AliExpress continues to grow in the UK. According to data from Similarweb, during last year's Black Friday to Cyber Monday period, AliExpress recorded a sharp rise in UK visits, up more than 140%. By building on its global e-commerce capabilities, AliExpress is strengthening its UK operations, aiming to enhance local supply chains, accelerate delivery, and better serve both international and domestic customers.
IOL News
09-07-2025
- IOL News
Is ChatGPT really killing Google?
Chat GPT is increasingly being used for functions which were previously the domain of Google. Image: Supplied Shira Ovide There are regular headlines suggesting chatbots like ChatGPT may be taking over for Googling. Maybe you've also started using artificial intelligence instead of Google to hunt for hiking boots, news about flooding in Texas or Roblox game tips. To separate truth from belief, I dug into the numbers. What I found was that our use of chatbots is growing fast but that Google search still overwhelmingly remains our front door to find online news, information and products. Sorry, AI bros. Web search may be losing some ground to AI, but we rely on it so much that chatbots are barely making a dent. The data suggests that Google has nearly 400 times the usage of ChatGPT for some news and information. Chatbots for news Similarweb, which studies our website activity, said last month that ChatGPT is a massively fast-growing way that Americans are finding online news articles. About 25 million times from January through May this year, we landed on a news website after clicking a link in ChatGPT - up from just about 1 million times a year earlier, according to Similarweb. Wow. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with ChatGPT owner OpenAI.) Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ But in the same five months, Americans landed on news websites about 9.5 billion times from using web search engines including Google and clicking on a link, Similarweb's director of market insights, Laurie Naspe, confirmed. Put another way, for every American who asked ChatGPT for information and landed on a news website to learn more, 379 people used Google to do the same thing. Important caveats: We behave differently when using chatbots for information compared with web search engines. Chatbots (including the 'AI Overviews' in Google search) paraphrase information from news articles about Samsung's latest smartphone or online reviews of air purifiers. You might rarely click a web link to find out more, as you do with conventional Google searches. That behavior is causing carnage for websites and alters the Similarweb numbers. When we use ChatGPT to summarize news events and stop there, it doesn't show up in Similarweb's web click data. However you interpret the numbers, Google remains for now a dominant way Americans find news websites. The percentage of website visits to search vs AI sites Image: The Washington Post Chatbots vs search A different report, by web analysis firm Datos by Semrush and software company SparkToro, found that about 11 out of every 100 of our website visits from a computer is to Google and other search engines. AI technologies - including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and more - account for less than 1 out of every 100 websites we visit combined. The report shows a huge increase in the amount of web visits to chatbot sites in the past year, but we're still using search websites many times more. 'Search is one of the most popular and fastest-growing features in ChatGPT,' an OpenAI spokesperson said. 'We're investing in a faster, smarter search experience and remain committed to helping people discover high-quality news and information.' Google said it generally doesn't comment about its market share. SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin did some related number crunching and found that chatbots were even punier compared with search. He made educated assumptions to compare how often we're using ChatGPT to find the kinds of information for which we've typically used Google, such as learning about the Golden Gate Bridge or comparing options for an air conditioner. Fishkin found that we're doing more than 14 billion Google searches a day compared with at most 37.5 million Google-like searches on ChatGPT. Google, in other words, has about 373 times the comparable usage of ChatGPT. Important caveat: Fishkin's educated guesses are just one data point. Fishkin also wasn't counting our use of chatbots for tasks we don't do in search, such as summarizing a long report or writing a bedtime story. And some of our time with Google search is now with its AI Overviews and AI Mode, though it's hard to measure how much. There have been other imperfect but useful analyses that have suggested we're doing more Google searches and using chatbots more, too. At least hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT each week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in April. While the numbers aren't comparable, Google's web search has nearly 5 billion users. So are chatbots killing Google search? The answer, like our habits, isn't that simple. In my conversations with people who oversee websites, some of them said they are overhauling their strategy to attract readers and viewers like you, because they believe fewer people will find them from web search links and more from chatbots. Your favorite websites are willingly or grudgingly adapting to chatbots that might kill them anyway. It can also be true that we constantly misjudge how fast new technology is replacing our old habits. It might feel as if people buy everything online, but e-commerce accounts for just 16 percent of all the stuff that Americans buy. Until very recently, Americans still spent more time watching conventional cable or free television than streaming on TVs, according to Nielsen. And for now, the use of ChatGPT for news and other information remains puny. 'When everyone else is talking about it and the media's writing about it, a new technology can feel far bigger than it is,' Fishkin said. | The Washington Post
The Verge
08-07-2025
- The Verge
Threads is catching up to X on mobile.
Posted Jul 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM UTC Threads is catching up to X on mobile. According to Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch , the Threads mobile app reached 115.1 million daily active users in June, compared to the 132 million daily actives for X and 4.1 million for Bluesky. But while X's growth declined by 15.2 percent year-over-year on mobile, Threads has increased by 127.8 percent during the same period. X only has to take Meta seriously on iOS and Android, however, given it's still thrashing both Threads and Bluesky for web visits.
