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STORY: “Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads”.

That was the first post from Mark Zuckerberg as he launched his new rival to Twitter.

Within hours 10 million people had signed up.

Those quick to join included celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez.

Brands like HBO and Netflix also launched accounts within minutes.

Threads looks pretty familiar.

It’s built around text posts of up to 500 characters.

While users can also post pictures and videos up to five minutes long.

It’s all meant to take advantage of the chaos at Twitter since it was taken over by Elon Musk.

And it has one big advantage.

People can sign in with their existing username from Instagram - also owned by Meta.

Since Instagram claims to have over 2 billion users, that could enable Threads to gain serious scale very quickly.

It also benefits from Instagram’s advertising system, meaning it could draw dollars away from its rival.

Threads is available in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

Some new users were quick to predict Twitter’s demise.

But Zuckerberg advised caution.

He said this was just the opening moment of the first round.

But the fight is definitely on.