Threads needs a "following" feed and edits — and they're coming

Source: CrackBerry

It's been only a week since Instagram's short-form text social network Threads launched and in that time it has exploded in popularity — and the user experience has changed a lot too. Meta's take on Twitter exceeded 100 million users in a shockingly short time, thanks in no small part to its reliance on the already existing 2 billion Instagram user accounts, timing that coincided with chaos on Twitter, and no shortage of media hype.

The biggest user experience problem facing Threads right now is the purely algorithmic timeline. On the first day of Threads a user's feed was likely to be dominated by the people they followed, in part because of the excitement leading to a lot of activity of users just trying the platform out. But as that initial "what is this?" hype died down, the algorithm took over and the Threads feed came to be dominated by large brands and celebrities. In part this is due to the web of connections that powers everything Meta does, and a lot of these brands/influencers/celebrities were interacting with each other and thus promoting their accounts into everybody's feed.

All it took was following one account that commented a bunch on popular users, or got a lot of comments on its own posts (like the official @threadsapp account) for the feed to be overwhelmed with the kind of posts from celebrities and brands that I just don't care about.

It's clear that the Threads developers have adjusted the way that algorithm works recently, as the main feed on Threads has become somewhat more relevant to my interests, but there's still a lot appearing there that I just do. not. care. about. On first load after some time away from the app it's mostly the accounts I follow, but if I refresh after that suddenly I'm getting Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and, uh, "nugget".

That's where one of the most important early additions that Threads could make has been promised: a following feed of just (or mostly) the accounts that you follow. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has been leading the charge on Threads and said that a following feed is among the new features the team is prioritizing next:

Post by @mosseri

View on Threads

Other upcoming features include improving the search function to search post content as well as just the usernames it currently searches and an edit button. No word on if the edit button will be locked behind a paywall as on Twitter, but that seems unlikely at this point. Ironically, Mosseri could've used that edit button — the official Threads account is @threadsapp, not the @threads he tagged (women's fashion brand American Threads).

Despite that these features would bring Threads closer to parity with Twitter, Mosseri told The Verge that Threads isn't seeking to completely supplant Twitter — even if the launch was moved up without some of these key features in order to take advantage of Elon Musk's latest antics leading Twitter. Mosseri tempered expectations saying "it'd be a mistake to underestimate both Twitter and Elon. Twitter has got a lot of history; it has an incredibly strong and vibrant community on it. The network effects are incredibly strong."

Then again, Threads has already passed 100 million users, so maybe they stand a chance here.

Instagram takes on Twitter

Everything you need to know about Threads, Instagram's Twitter clone

Threads is Meta's attempt at a "microblogging" platform, in the vein of Twitt— err, X. It's still pretty new, but has seen decent adoption thanks to being built on the accounts system of Instagram. It's also seen regular updates to add new features like a "following" feed and a full web interface.