Meta's take on Twitter/X rival Instagram Threads steps further into competitor territory, perhaps with the development of community features that will allow users to better organize discussions on the platform by topic. There is a possibility. At least, the references in the app's code seem to imply that.
The code mentions a new feature called Loops that Threads early adopter and veteran technologist Chris Messina discovered on Monday. The new strings he discovered were introduced in the latest app update and mention fields for joining and leaving the Loop community, community name, profile, and other elements. (Additionally, the reference “BCN” in the code refers to Threads' pre-launch internal code name, Barcelona. “TextApp” also serves as a similar reference.)
Reached for comment, Instagram did not reveal its plans for these Loop communities or what their features might entail. However, the company said that this feature is in the early stages of development and has not been tested internally or externally at this time.
Threads app code image credit: Chris Messina
Threads app code image credit: Chris Messina
Although the X community is not yet a notable addition, X owner Elon Musk has high hopes for further growth. Since acquiring the social network, Musk has been driving the growth and improvement of the X community. In early April of this year, he reshared a post touting that X members had increased their time in the community by 495%, and time spent had increased by over 600% year-over-year. He also announced the addition of an “Explore” tab, the ability for moderators to pin posts, timeline sorting options, and other features that could help X feature challenge Reddit's communities known as subreddits. We frequently share and reshare posts about community updates, such as changes to.
Musk also noted last year that Company X was discontinuing its private sharing feature, Circles, in favor of community improvements.
Threads app code image credit: Chris Messina
We believe it makes sense to bring similar community features to Threads, not only because it makes the app more competitive with X, but also because it reflects the fact that Threads users are starting to organize on the platform. You can
Since Threads has moved away from traditional hashtags in favor of a different type of hyperlink tag for following topics, users can now use the format “topic name” followed by the word “thread.” and started tagging their posts to reach different groups. For example, you can follow tags such as “Tech Thread,” “Design Thread,” “Fitness Thread,” and “Sports Thread.”
However, this system is not based on hashtags that users are familiar with and can be confusing. Also, some people put a space between the topic and the word “thread” while others don't.
Creating a community to organize discussions around a topic could be a potential solution to the problem, while perhaps adding a layer of moderation.
Messina wasn't the only one to discover lupus. Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi also discovered this feature earlier this month and showed how it works in practice. He also noted that Threads is working on adding loop shortcuts to the composer and home header.
Updated on October 8, 23, 1:43 PM with additional images from Paluzzi.