Meta's Threads is a Messaging app built by the team behind the photo-sharing app Instagram

It's been less than a week since Meta Platforms launched Threads — a platform that has a lot of similarities with Elon Musk's Twitter — and the social media platform has already racked up 100 million users. Meta's Threads is a messaging app that allows you to communicate with your close friends. 

What are Meta's threads?

Launched by Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp-parent Meta on July 5, Threads is a text-based public conversation app that was built by the team behind the photo-sharing app Instagram. Both iOS and Android users in over 100 countries could access the app this week. Attracting around 70 million sign-ups in just two days, the response reportedly stunned even Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reported Bloomberg.

While Twitter had around 368 million monthly active users worldwide in December 2022, according to Statista, Instagram has over two billion monthly active users.

Here are the top 5 things to know about it:

1. Thread is a standalone app, but it's designed to work seamlessly with Instagram.

2. Threads are focused on your close friends, and it makes it easy to share photos, videos, and messages with them.

3. Threads has a feature called "Status" that lets you quickly update your friends on what you're up to.

4. Threads has a "Do Not Disturb" mode that lets you silence notifications for a set period of time.

5. Threads has a feature called "Auto Status" that uses your phone's location to automatically update your status.