Instagram’s Twitter/X rival Threads is getting more competitive by expanding keyword search to all markets where the app is available. The feature was first tested in English-speaking markets, including Australia and New Zealand, in August before being rolled out to most other English- and Spanish-speaking countries, including the US in September. Now, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, keyword search will be “supported in all languages.”
This will make the app, now used by nearly 100 million people a month, more useful to a wider, global audience.
The news also comes on the heels of reports that Threads is nearing an EU launch. The Wall Street Journal has suggested that the app could launch in the EU as soon as next month, noting that it may also launch a view-only mode that will allow users to read posts without creating an account.
Offering search capabilities to EU users would be a key aspect of serving this market, where many different languages are spoken. But it would also make Threads more useful in the more than 100 countries where the app is now available, beyond the US
Image Credits: Threads
The Threads team is quickly iterating the app in response to user feedback, adding features such as a chronological follow feed, a web app, a way to view your likes, polls, GIFs, hashtag support (without the hashing), an edit button, change profile and more in the months following its release. 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 yet to adopt a central feature that drives X: Trending Topics, although it has been spotted in the works. In fact, the company seems to want to be a less real-time version of X, as its algorithmic feed often features days-old posts. Mosseri also stated directly that the company does not aim to amplify news on the platform, differentiating the app from X’s focus on breaking news. That said, many ex-X users participate in Threads, which ultimately can dictate the direction of the application.
In today’s note, Mosseri said more search improvements are coming soon.
For now, Threads continues to block terms like “long-term covid” and related phrases in search, referring users to the CDC website for current information.
With nearly 100 million monthly users, Threads is still smaller than X, which had nearly 550 million monthly active users as of September, per X owner Elon Musk. But it’s also not yet available in all 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 few years.
