Meta's Mark Zuckerberg launched Instagram's much-anticipated companion app Threads on Wednesday. This app is expected to give Twitter a run for its money. 

"Let's get started. "Welcome to Threads," Zuckerberg wrote beside a fire emoji in his first post on the program. He said the app had 5 million sign-ups in the first four hours.

PHOTO | COURTESY Threads

The program, like Twitter, includes brief text posts that users can like, re-post, and reply to, but it does not support direct messaging. According to a Meta blog article, posts can be up to 500 characters extended and include links, photographs, and videos up to five minutes long.

The blog post shows it is available in over 100 countries on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store.

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Analysts say investors are excited at the prospect of Threads' ties to Instagram, providing it with a built-in user base and advertising equipment. This might suck ad dollars away from Twitter at a time when the microblogging company's new CEO is attempting to turn things around.

While Threads is a standalone app, users can log in with their Instagram credentials and follow the same profiles, making it an easy addition to Instagram's more than 2 billion monthly active users' existing habits.

PHOTO | COURTESY threads

On Wednesday, Meta stock finished up 3% ahead of the launch, surpassing advances by competitor tech companies as the broader market fell.

Threads' debut comes after months of jabs between Zuckerberg and Musk, including threats to fight in a real-life mixed martial arts cage competition in Las Vegas.

Meta's timing is perfect, as months of Musk's erratic decision-making have roiled Twitter.

PHOTO | COURTESY Musk

Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter last October, but its valuation has since dropped due to an exodus of advertising, massive personnel cuts, and content moderation concerns. Its most recent action limited the number of tweets users could read daily.

Brands like Billboard, HBO, NPR and Netflix had accounts set up within minutes of launch, as did celebrities like Shakira and other well-known personalities such as former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. According to a Reuters review, the app did not appear to show any ads.