California [US], December 4 : Instagram's Twitter/X rival, Threads, is getting more aggressive by bringing its keyword search function to every area where the app is accessible. Before being rolled out to the majority of other English- and Spanish-speaking nations, including the United States, in September, the feature was first tested in English-speaking regions, such as Australia and New Zealand, in August, reported TechCrunch.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has announced that keyword searches will now be "supported in all languages."
According to TechCrunch that will make the app, now used by nearly 100 million people per month, more useful to a broader, global audience. The news also comes on the heels of reports that Threads is nearing an EU launch.
Serving the EU market, where users speak many different languages, would need to provide search capabilities. But outside of the United States, it would also increase Threads' utility for the more than 100 nations in which it is already accessible.
In the months after the app's release, the Threads team has been quickly improving it in response to user feedback. Features like a chronological following feed, a web app, a way to view your likes, polls, GIFs, support for hashtags (without the hash), an edit button, profile switching, and more have been added.
The company has also promised a developer API and plans to integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol that also powers Mastodon and other networks.
However, Threads has not yet adopted one central feature that drives X: Trending Topics, though it has been spotted in development. The company seems to want to be a less real-time version of X, as its algorithmic feed often features days-old posts. Mosseri has also directly stated that the company doesn't aim to amplify news on the platform, differentiating the app from X's focus on breaking news. That said, many former X users are joining Threads, which ultimately may dictate the app's direction, according to TechCrunch.
Mosseri said that more improvements to search would also be coming soon.
For the time being, Threads keeps preventing searches for terms like "long covid" and similar expressions, instead directing users to the CDC website for up-to-date information.
With nearly 100 million monthly users, Threads is still smaller than X, which has nearly 550 million monthly active users as of September, per X owner Elon Musk. But it's also not yet available in all the markets that X supports, which limits its growth. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains bullish on the app's potential, recently telling investors that Threads could be Meta's next billion-person app in a matter of years, reported TechCrunch.
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