What happened
With all the tumult occurring with the now Elon Musk-owned X -- formerly known as Twitter -- Meta Platforms (META 0.90%) sensed an opportunity to offer its own micro-messaging service. A new move apparently planned by Meta could give it a fresh shot in the arm.
On news of this, cautiously optimistic investors traded Meta's stock up by more than 2% on Monday. That was more than good enough to beat the S&P 500 index, which inched 0.7% higher on the day.
So what
In an exclusive report published Sunday night, citing "people familiar with Meta's plans," The Wall Street Journal said the company aims to roll out a web version of threads early this week. It did not get more specific about timing.
The financial newspaper also quoted the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, stating the launch of Threads online was imminent. In his Instagram profile, Mosseri wrote that "It's a little bit buggy right now, you don't want it just yet. As soon as it is ready we will share it with everybody else."
Threads was a hotly popular app when it was first launched by the social media giant at the beginning of July, although take-up has slowed since then.
One reason for this could be availability and accessibility; then and now, it's only available as an app for mobile devices.
Now what
Many tech-savvy folks have smartphones and tablets and use them regularly, of course, but the reach of any software offering is limited if it doesn't include desktop PCs. And even with the latest whiz-bang technology, PCs remain one of the best ways to use web-based applications. While it's still very early in the life cycle of Threads, the coming web version is sure to revive at least some interest in the product.
