Faster than expected: Threads introduces custom feeds

The US company Meta is moving fast. Just five days after the social media company began testing custom feeds in its Threads short message service, these are now being introduced for all users. The company announced this on Wednesday. "When we said soon, we meant it. Custom feeds, are rolling out now!" it said in a short post.

Custom feeds allow users to follow topics and accounts in a single feed. To create such a custom feed, search for a topic, click on the three-dot menu and then on the "Create new feed" option. Users can also tap on the three-dot menu in a person's profile and then on "Add to feed". Additional topics and profiles can also be added in this way. It is also possible to switch between the "For you", "Follow" and user-defined feeds. Some users commented that they would much rather have a chronological feed.

Competitor Bluesky is growing fast

The rapid introduction of user-defined feeds may also have something to do with the pressure from competitor Bluesky. Bluesky now has 20 million accounts and is probably almost as active as Threads, even if Bluesky is still significantly smaller than Threads in absolute terms. However, a good five million Bluesky accounts have been added in the past week alone. The background to this development is therefore also a large wave of people leaving X since the US election.

Bluesky commented smugly and ironically on the Threads announcement: "Nice to see other social networks copying custom feeds! This is the kind of competition and innovation that has been missing from social networks for the last decade because progress has been stuck with the tech giants. That's what's improving our online experience."

(akn)