Meta Inc.’s Threads is stepping up its game with the launch of shareable public custom feeds, a direct response to the growing influence of Bluesky as the “Twitter replacement.”
Users on Threads can now make their curated feeds public, allowing others to follow and pin these feeds for quick access to specialized content categories spanning interests like art, fashion, and more.
This development comes at a time when the social media landscape is heating up.
X (formerly Twitter), Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads are vying for attention in a crowded space, each offering disparate features aimed at community building and personalization.
Bluesky has been flourishing by allowing users to customize their feeds with third-party applications, attracting many who left X seeking better user experiences or for political reasons.
Threads, having introduced its custom feeds last November, is rapidly evolving to meet user expectations.
Meta emphasized the simplicity of its offering, stating that anyone can build custom feeds without needing technical skills.
By making feeds public, Meta hopes to harness the collective intelligence of its user base, encouraging people to connect over shared interests and bypass algorithmic constraints.
The ability to explore public feeds through a new tab and pin favorites introduces a dynamic way to engage with the platform. Users can tap and hold their feeds to toggle public sharing and send them to others through links or direct messages, expanding the network effect.
In contrast to Threads’ focus on interests, Bluesky provides more eclectic sorting and filtering options, such as feeds dedicated to trending network topics or missed content, catering to diverse user needs.
The leader in the short-form written content sphere — Elon Musk’s X doesn’t offer custom feeds in the same way but it does allow users to build out X, which can be used on the X Pro experience.
Mark Zuckerberg would have hoped to capture users fleeing X in light of Musk’s acquisition and the world’s richest person’s support of President Donald Trump in the 2024 election — but that didn’t quite happen at scale.
Many of Musk’s detractors including his estranged transgender daughter did take to Threads but Bluesky ended up capturing the biggest chunk of the market.