Facebook is experimenting with “Threads”, a new application to be used alongside Instagram to encourage the sharing of information and content with their closest friends. The tests so far have taken place internally to the company, which has not provided official news on the app, but the technology site The Verge has informally obtained some screens and information on the operation of the system, which could be made available to users in the next months.
Once installed and associated with your Instagram account, Threads proposes to constantly and automatically send some information to your closest friends, chosen from your contacts. In addition to status updates, photos and videos (which can be modified with the filters already present on Instagram), the app gives you the possibility to automatically share your geographical location in real time, taking up a recently added feature to WhatsApp, other application owned by Facebook.
According to the information collected by The Verge, Threads is very reminiscent of some options that have already been available for some time on Snapchat, a competitor of Facebook and from which the developers of the social network have drawn a lot of inspiration in recent years to update and make Instagram more interesting. Snapchat has been losing ground to Instagram in recent times, but the average time users spend on its app is higher and Facebook would like to change that, not least because more time spent on an app that relies on advertising equates to more chances. of advertising revenues.
Threads falls into the category of applications designed to constantly communicate with your contacts, making the sharing of much of the information automatic. The automatisms are all “opt-in”, so it means that at the first use the user must give his explicit consent to activate them, unlike what happened in the past on Facebook, where often the new features were imposed on all subscribers, that only later could they deactivate them by looking for them in the settings.
However, in the current experimentation phase, some Threads features seem to be limited. Automatic location sharing, for example, is not very accurate and works mostly to indicate if your contact is on the move, which can come in handy when making an appointment somewhere. Status updates can be automatic or manual, and appear in a list with information from various other contacts.
Threads also has a part dedicated to direct messages, which follows the one already available on Instagram and which until recently could also be used through the separate app for Direct messaging, which was then closed. As happens on Messenger, also on Threads a green dot next to the avatar indicates which contacts are online and active to receive messages. The stories published by your friends on Instagram are also visible in the new application, which is also equipped with a function for taking photos and videos, to be shared directly with your contacts.
Facebook's intentions on Threads are not very clear for now. The company could decide to make the app available to users in its current version, or to give up and add some of the features tested directly within Instagram. Facebook has produced and abandoned several Instagram-based apps in recent years that should have competed more with Snapchat.
Facebook has also been working for some time on integrating systems for Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger messages. Officially, the union of the apps serves to make the management of messages more rational, but according to numerous observers it could serve Facebook to demonstrate to the United States antitrust the impossibility of splitting and selling Instagram and WhatsApp, should it be requested by the government. for reasons of abuse of dominant position on the market of applications for social networks.
