Threads is the fastest-growing social media platform of all time, reaching 100 million users in just five days. The platform was launched by Meta to compete with Twitter after Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk and had a precipitous decline in users and quality. While it ties directly into Instagram and is built on the same technology, Threads is intended to be a town square for the internet. But can a town square thrive when it’s filled suddenly with millions of voices and moderated in the same way that made Instagram a place that was friendly for brands and few others?
So get ready to sit on those hot takes a little longer. Alessandro Paluzzi, who regularly finds new features by reverse engineering apps, posted a screenshot showing this new “Save draft” option.
That’s according to Alessandro Paluzzi, who regularly spots features in the works for apps like Threads and Instagram.
I’m not much of a bookmarker myself, but if you are, I’m hoping for you that this feature comes out soon.
Tom Coates was recently at a meeting with Meta’s Threads team talking about ActivityPub, the fediverse, and the future of social. He took a lot of interesting notes! And in those notes he has a near-future roadmap for Threads’ decentralization plans:
• Early 2024 (Part One) – the Like counts on the Threads app would combine likes from Mastodon and Threads users
• Early 2024 (Part Two) – replies posted on Mastodon servers would be visible in the Threads application
• Late 2024 – A “mixed” Fediverse and Threads experience where you will be able to follow Mastodon users within Threads, and reply to them and like them
[plasticbag.org]
“Earlier today, an internal prototype was accidentally made available for a small number of people — this is not something we’re testing externally at this time,“ the company told TechCrunch. It’s a shame, since sorting by latest would make it much easier to track breaking news on Threads. Apparently Meta thinks the feature would create a “substantial safety loophole.”
It looks like the app might be adding a list of topics “based on what people are engaging with right now,” according to app developer Alessandro Paluzzi. You can see how the feature might look in the screenshot below, which has a “Today’s topic” heading positioned beneath the search bar.
Meanwhile, a separate post from Paluzzi also suggests Threads might add a feature that shows live updates for “upcoming, ongoing and past sports events.”
Adam Mosseri says that Threads has had some issues with what he calls “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks. He says that “a lot of it” should be fixed and that things should get “much better over the next few weeks.”
That’s according to a Threads developer, at least. Can’t wait for Techmeme to use the API eventually. (And, hopefully, many other accounts.)
Posts wishing people a happy New Year on Meta’s Threads might come with fun colors and effects to celebrate the holiday.
Alessandro Paluzzi, who frequently discovers new features (like the Threads edit button) before they’re out, by reverse engineering apps, posted a screenshot of the festive text in action.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri posted a little more about the plan to integrate Threads with the fediverse.
While responding to some skepticism about pushing posts out to other ActivityPub instances, Mosseri said only public accounts will show in the wider fediverse outside of Threads, and — though he said this isn’t fully decided — only after users “explicitly opt in.”
I mean, that’s kind of grandiose, but it’s not that grandiose? How the whole Beeper vs. Apple thing ends will matter in big ways, even if you don’t care about bubble colors. Epic v. Google could upend the app store ecosystem. And Threads, well, Threads is crushing it right now.
I’m seeing Adam Mosseri’s new Threads video when I look at his Threads account via mastodon.social on the web. It even showed up in my regular Mastodon feed! I can’t believe this actually works. Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko is pretty excited, too.
It turns out you can use Threads’ new hashtags to troll people into clicking “show more” and actually doing a tag search instead. Threads launched in Europe today, so as these newcomers get used to a new social media home, make sure you drop a show more post into the mix. It’s harmless fun that will probably get lost in all the new conversations about fine wine, great Italian food, and the British moaning about the weather again.
A Threads user, Kevin Beaumont, shared screenshots of Adam Mosseri’s account on the Mastodon client Ivory, and on Mastodon, Beaumont shared screenshots of following Mosseri’s Threads account from his Mastodon account. It’s happening!
Threads currently matches the fact-check ratings from Facebook and Instagram, but “our goal is for fact-checking partners to have the ability to review and rate misinformation on the app,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a post on Threads.
Improving fact-checking tools could make Threads a more attractive place for publishers. (The forthcoming API might help, too.)
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri’s small announcement is important to anyone who publishes content on the internet. Until now, traffic from Threads was indistinguishable from Instagram in the metrics used by sites like this one, But now that it has a separate link referrer, site owners can see for themselves how much traffic it’s sending in comparison to competitors.
On the other hand, Twitter / X allegedly just signed up 10 million new people in a week, if you can believe that.
Even as big advertisers exit, sports Twitter has continued going strong. But now the official Threads account announced that sports/NBA Twitter’s newsbreaker Adrian Wojnarowski “has landed” and is doing a Q&A Friday.
If “woj bombs” are on the move, it might be about more than hashtags — Wojnarowski works at ESPN, which is still owned by Disney. Musk singled out Disney CEO Bob Iger with his “go f yourself” comments last week, then followed up with more attacks and accusations today while misspelling Iger’s name and saying “He should be fired immediately.”
If somebody has turned an emoji into a tag, you’ll be able to click on that emoji to see other people talking about it.
In other news, please join my waffle club.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says letting users see search results chronologically “would create a substantial safety loophole.” I’ve replied to ask exactly what he means by that. Perhaps it’s so that Meta can always algorithmically sort search results and root out the bad stuff? I do hope Mosseri reconsiders this position, as chronological search results on X (formerly Twitter) can be pretty useful.
On Thursday, Meta expanded Threads’ keyword search feature to more languages.
Meta started letting users in English and Spanish-speaking countries search for keywords in September, but now it’s available to Threads users globally and in all languages.
A member of the Threads team just posted about it. I was able to log in from Chrome on iOS; on Safari, for some reason, I wasn’t. I’m assuming that whatever is going on there will be fixed sometime soon.
And even though I’m running into that issue, I’m happy that using Threads through a mobile browser is an option at all. I’m weird: I like to log in to social media services through the mobile web instead of downloading an app.
Like with X (formerly Twitter), you can pin a post to the top of your profile. But you can also pin a reply to one of your posts, which I think could be a really useful tool.
Meta started testing the feature last month, and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced that pinned posts were live on Tuesday.
Threads DMs seemed like a possibility after Jorge Caballero, who posts a lot about Threads features and updates as @datadrivenmd, shared a screenshot that seemed to show that some sort of DM setting was added to the app. But Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said Caballero is “likely” seeing that setting because of the way Threads is built on top of Instagram. “We’re not building DMs into Threads,” Mosseri said.
While disappointing, this isn’t exactly a new position; when Threads launched in July, Mosseri told my colleague Alex Heath that “to start, we don’t want to do any DMs.”
They’re apparently in the works, as shown in this screenshot on X shared by app feature-finder Alessandro Paluzzi. In the screenshot, it appears that the word “Threads” is hyperlinked, so maybe you’ll link to individual words or phrases instead of dropping a #hashtag in your post.
Paluzzi also shared a screenshot that indicates Meta is prepping to release Threads in Europe. On Threads itself, there’s some chatter that DMs may be added soon.
We’ve asked Meta about if or when these potential features may be released.
Instagram is working on... something. Alessandro Paluzzi, a Threads / X / Instagram sleuth, found a reference to a feature called My WonderWall. It’s behind a clipboard icon.
That’s it. That’s all we know.
Correction November 13th, 2023, 8:52AM ET: I originally called this a Threads feature, but It’s an Instagram feature. I regret the error.
There’s plenty to criticize about the company, but tell that to 7-year-old me, climbing up into that hamburger cop’s head.
Anyway, here are some behind-the-scenes pictures from the Loki McDonald’s episode. While we’re at it, here’s the McDonald’s scene from Mac and Me. And an AI-upscaled Mac Tonight commercial.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri shared some nice smaller features you can take advantage of on Threads on the web, including the ability to tweak alt text on photos and videos. Still waiting on ActivityPub integration, but I’ll take these nice improvements in the meantime.
A good content publishing API might make it a lot easier to convince publishers to post things on Threads. And maybe we’ll get some fun bots?
If you have ideas, send them to the team on Threads.
