Threads Just Released Three New Features.
On Tuesday, Meta announced that Threads now has over 500 million monthly active users. While there’s no Threads Plus subscription yet , Meta is announcing three new features aimed at improving your feed and building communities on the platform. As TechCrunch reports, you’ll be able to influence what you see in your feed (there’s no switch to disable bots, but you can warn them) and how you interact with groups using the new “Communities” feature. Live Chats will also be expanded.
Influence your feed with Dear Algo, but privately.
While Threads offered users the ability to customize its algorithms, it was far from perfect. The “Dear Algorithm” feature forced users to post messages asking the Threads algorithm to make adjustments. The messages would say something like, “Dear Algorithm, show me more NBA and tech content.” It worked, but it was a bit awkward. Fortunately, the “Dear Algorithm” feature will be closed in the future.
The updated feature, now called “Your Algorithm,” allows you to make the same settings (privately or publicly) from a new section in the sidebar—you just need to specify a time frame (one, three, or seven days). Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to make “Your Algorithm” queries permanent, but at least it’s something. The feature launches today in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Communities feature in Threads is finally out of beta.
Meta’s Communities feature, launched last year, is leaving beta. However, its rollout is gradual, so it will take some time to become available globally. On Threads, Communities are an evolution of tags and topics. Starting with 200 topics, they now cover every topic worldwide. They have their own sections in the Threads app, featuring tags, labels, and ” champions ” (members who frequently interact with a specific Threads community).
Along with the public release, Meta is adding a new “Communities” section to the left sidebar. Here, you can view and switch between all the communities you’re a member of. Each community will have its own icons and visual identity, making it easier to find messages across different discussion threads. Native language tags will also be available for communities in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
More communities will feature online chats.
The Live Chat feature is another attempt by Meta to lure users away from X. Live Chat encourages real-time communication about events. You can tag events, comment on them, and follow them using the Live tag. With the FIFA World Cup already in full swing, Meta plans to roll this feature out to all communities by July.