When Meta, Inc., rolled out its Threads social medium it utilized an incredibly strong asset: Its Instagram user base.
Two billion strong and counting, the integration of Instagram into the Threads sign-up process was simply brilliant: No need to create a new username and password, no need to search for those you followed on Instagram and re-add them; all was provided, with the option to not do so and start from scratch.
Most Threads accounts were created with instant followers, solving the “chicken before the egg” problem. When an account is created, it’s instantly connected to an existing followship of an already-made web of interconnected accounts.
That being said, Meta, Inc. did something less intuitive with regards to its primary domain name, Threads.net. By acquiring (perhaps on the cheap) a .net domain name, it bypassed the pricey process of getting the matching .com, Threads.com.
Used by its current operators since 2017, the Slack-alternative services provider took the news in stride. Free traffic! 🙂
That was the initial reaction and now Threads.com is able to humor its way to a potential acquisition for a lot (a LOT!) of money, should Meta, Inc. decide that the domain is important to them.
On Threads.com a sticker shows that they are not affiliated with Instagram, saving millions of users the initial frustration of realizing they landed on the wrong domain name. But now, Threads.com really ups the ante, using the following image on Twitter:
Threads.com also owns a registered trademark for THREADS in the US, making its brand-holding position extremely strong. They don’t have to move a finger, unless an offer arrives from Meta, Inc., with seven digits, or a minimum of $10 million dollars.
Of course, .net domain names are still great to use but ultimately, for high traffic sites experiencing a viral growth, there will always be a leak of traffic to the dot .com.
