Instagram recently surpassed Twitter in terms of active users, hitting 300 million while Twitter has 284 million. However, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams does not seem to care about the metric of active users, in an interview with Fortune.

"It's a question of breadth versus depth. Why is [usership] the only thing we talk about? The crazy thing: Facebook has done an amazing job of establishing that as the metric for Wall Street. No one ever talks about, 'What is a [monthly active user]?'"

Like Us on Facebook

Williams continued: "I believe it's the case that if you use Facebook Connect-if you use an app that you logged into with Facebook Connect-you're considered a Facebook user whether or not you ever launched the Facebook app or went to Facebook.com. So what does that mean? It's become so abstract to be meaningless. Something you did caused some data in their servers to be recorded for the month. So I think we're on the wrong path.

"If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it's pretty significant. It's at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It's this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter-important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that's happening, I frankly don't give a shit if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures."

It is true, Twitter has become the de-facto network for companies and celebrities, capable of speaking to fans and getting out quick information. It has also become a hub for quicktime news events and trends-something Facebook is actively trying to bring to its own social network.

Williams also claimed Twitter makes a "hell of a lot more" money than Instagram at the current time. Facebook has not disclosed details on Instagram's financials ever since the $1 billion purchase.

It is unclear the future of Twitter as a network, whether it can be successful in the long term. Various investors claim Twitter should sell or become a private entity like Ello-the new social network without advertisements.

However, the various co-founders and executives at Twitter see a growing product, which cannot be knocked down by simply "active monthly" figures. Williams is currently working on blogging site Medium. 

TagsEvan Williams, Instagram, active monthly users