Instagram’s Threads is getting ready to roll out a popular feature called Trends to compete with X (previously Twitter) more effectively. The upgrade was revealed in a screenshot mistakenly shared over the weekend by a Threads employee. The screenshot included a numbered list of current subjects along with the amount of “threads” that were actively debating each topic.
User Willian Max discovered the post and believes it was intended to be sent to an internal feed that was only accessible to Meta personnel. Mashable and 9to5Mac have already reported on the upcoming addition.
The picture displays popular trends like Drake’s latest album at No. 1 as well as other recent events like Billboard’s Latin Music Week or the premiere of Loki Season 2 on Disney+. As of yet, Instagram has not responded to the reports.
The primary Trends list on Threads, unlike on X, does not, it seems, appear to be accompanied by other trending lists by categories, such as News, Sports, and Entertainment, or a list of Trends that are tailored “For You.”
Nevertheless, the inclusion would be a step toward making Threads more competitive with X as the Instagram-run app hopes to take advantage of the ongoing turbulence and changes on the Elon Musk-owned microblogging network to entice people to join Threads instead. It’s not the only company attempting to compete with X; others include startup Pebble, open source Mastodon, the Bluesky app, which is supported by Jack Dorsey, and firms like Spill and Pebble.
There are also internal questions about how much news should be covered by Threads, as The Information recently reported, and senior leadership is reticent to do so because of the possible issues it could bring. Of course, Meta has had to deal with that issue throughout the years, where the spread of news on Facebook divided its user base and made it easier for inflammatory and false news to gain ground.
However, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri responded to a Threads post last week that implied the firm is probably reluctant to publish news, saying, “We’re not anti-news, news is already on threads. We’re merely attempting to avoid overpromising and underdelivering to a tremendously influential group, a mistake our organization has made frequently in the past.
That may also be the reason why Trends wasn’t one of the first elements Threads worked on in its attempt to emulate Twitter/X.
According to The Washington Post, Threads has so far taken a careful approach to news and trends, blocking words like “covid” and “long covid,” “vaccination,” as well as other words like “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” and “porn” from its search tool. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, stated in a recent interview with The Verge that he wanted Threads to have a “more positive, friendly place for discussion” as opposed to X, which he claimed “indexes very strongly on just being quite negative and critical.”
Aiming for “good vibes only” isn’t necessarily a viable strategy, either, as news often elicits strong feelings and emotions.
Additionally, it’s unclear whether adding Trends will persuade users to switch from X to Threads, given that other eagerly awaited improvements, like the launch of the web app, haven’t yet had much of an impact.
The Android app usage for Threads decreased in its first month, from 49.2 million on July 7 to 10.3 million a month later, according to Similarweb. Other August 2023 figures from data.ai show that Threads currently has 135 million global monthly active users, which is significantly less than X’s estimated 666 million.
