Meta’s Threads app is undergoing “long-overdue improvements” amid increasing competition from Bluesky which has seen a massive surge in user signups over the past few weeks.
Threads is testing out new features that will help users get more precise search results and explore trending topics, according to Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram who also oversaw the launch of the X competitor in July last year.
Several new updates have been introduced on Threads in the midst of Bluesky’s current momentum. The decentralised social media platform hit 20 million users on Thursday, November 21, and has tripled its user base over the last three months. Created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky’s recent growth spike could be primarily attributed to the mass migration of users from X since November 6 (Election Day in the US).
Here’s a look at some of the new Threads features that are in-testing or made available to users recently.
Custom feeds
Last week, Threads introduced a new option that allows users to customise what they see on the platform by pinning multiple, curated feeds on the homepage.These custom feeds can be created by users around certain topics or accounts. It looks to give them more control on the platform beyond recommendations made by the Threads algorithm. A similar feature is also available on Bluesky.
Recently, Mosseri also said that Threads’ algorithm has been tweaked to prioritise posts from people who follow the user so that their default home feed is not filled with irrelevant content from accounts that they don’t follow.
Landscape video
Another new and essential feature that was rolled out on Threads this month was landscape video. This feature has been long-awaited as it finally lets users watch videos in landscape mode on Threads, which was previously not possible on the app.In another small step to help users navigate Threads more easily, the company also said that users will be shown other users’ replies while they are composing their own reply to a post.
New Search experience
Threads users will soon be able to search for posts within a specific date range or search for posts from a single account. X’s advanced search function already allows this.
Expanded trending topics
The Meta-owned social media platform is also testing a new trending page that would include additional trending topics. It will further show AI-generated summaries of what users are saying regarding that topic, Mosseri said in a post. However, this feature appears to be limited to users in the US for now.
Ads coming soon?
Earlier this year, Meta said that it would start showing Threads users ads from a small batch of advertisers from January 2025 onwards, according to a report by The Information. Confirming the ads rollout, Mosseri said, “I get why people have concerns, but at the end of the day we’re a business and Threads needs to make enough money to pay for the people and servers that it takes to run the service and provide it to people for free.”
While the platform is reportedly exploring ads as a potential revenue stream, Meta CFO Susan Li said during a recent earnings call that the company does not expect Threads to drive revenues next year.
Meanwhile, Musk’s relationship with X advertisers has been through several dramatic shifts. However, reports suggest that Donald Trump’s electoral victory has led major brands such as IBM, Disney, Comcast, Discovery, Warner Bros, and Lionsgate Entertainment to resume their ad campaigns on X in an attempt to earn favour with Elon Musk who is widely regarded as having the US president-elect’s ear.
What else is on the cards?
So far, visiting the URL threads[dot]com did not show anything relevant as the domain was reportedly registered to someone else. However, Meta appears to have purchased the domain name as the URL now shows an error message with a Facebook logo and “Meta © 2024” at the bottom of the page. This indicates that Meta could migrate the platform from Threads.net to the new URL.
In September, a developer pointed out that Instagram could become more closely integrated with Threads through a new feature that lets users share comments on other Instagram posts to Threads. Users can already see Threads posts in their Instagram feed unless they opt-out.