All the New Stream Features You Should Know About
Tired of Twitter/X but struggling to leave it behind ? Alternatives like Meta Threads seem enticing but lack many of the standard features we know and love. But we must leave X because, among many other reasons, X is such a stupid name.
Thankfully, Threads is slowly getting better as Meta continues to add new Twitter-like features. The next three features launched this week, as Mark Zuckerberg announced in Wednesday’s thread , but the others on this list were added earlier and more will likely follow.
Share posts on Instagram DM
If you stumble upon a topic that you know one of your Instagram friends would like, you can now share it directly with your Instagram DM, just like you could share a tweet with your Twitter DMs. Click the Share button, then click Send to Instagram.
Custom alt text for media
Alternative text adds context to any photo or video you upload to your social media feed. You can do it on Twitter, and now you can do it on Threads. Just press the “Alt” button that appears on your media, then type in what you want to say.
New mention option
If you want to tag someone in a thread, the new mention option makes it quick and easy. However, typing “@” followed by the account name also always works.
View your likes
Yes, this is a new feature! Yes, and not very convenient. To view your Likes, go to your profile tab, tap the menu in the top right corner, then tap Your Likes. Perhaps in the future we will see them as a separate section in the profile tab, like on Twitter.
Subscriber-only channel
Somehow Threads didn’t launch with a Follow feed, which means the whole app experience was mixing up accounts that Threads hoped you would like. This experience is still available in the For You tab, but if you tap the themes logo at the top of the screen, you’ll open the Subscriptions tab .
Topic translations
If you see a thread appearing in your feed in a language you don’t understand, you’ll see a small icon in the bottom right corner of the thread that you can click to translate it into your app’s default language. It’s not as obvious as Twitter’s translation tool, but it’s here.
Notifications for accounts you don’t follow
Counting the number of followers is a tricky balance, especially when there are so many interesting accounts on the platform. If you see an account you want to follow but don’t want to formally follow, go to their profile and hit the bell icon.
Follow new accounts easier
It’s always been easy to follow new Twitter accounts, and now it’s just as easy in Threads. Tap the (+) attached to the avatar of any account you want to follow.
What else is missing in Threads
The themes are still not perfect and you may feel that something is missing when you scroll through the platform. Namely, a web app (the current site is just a pretty advertisement for the app), a useful search tool (the current one only shows accounts, not topics), and the ability to tag topics with hashtags. The first two features seem inevitable , as Mark Zuckerberg said that both “search and the web” would launch in a few weeks. It is possible that hashtags will appear as part of the search, but it is not yet known.