Meta’s Threads, the X competitor, is continuing to rollout new features. One of the most anticipated ones was “search”, which is now rolling out throughout the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking world.
With full text search, Threads can now compete far more with X. Users who are interested in particular topics can now find them, which is critical for a text based social media. Tech Crunch reports:
A week after Instagram Threads announced it had begun testing a search feature in Australia and New Zealand, the feature is today expanding to “most” English and Spanish-speaking countries, according to a post on Threads by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The expansion will impact countries where people post in English and Spanish, including Argentina, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Though Threads — Meta’s attempt at rivaling Twitter, now called X — had offered a rudimentary search feature when it launched, it would only surface Threads users, not their content. That changed with the launch of full-text search last week, allowing users to seek out keywords and topics being discussed on the platform, not just other people.
Threads’s new features are essential for its survival. Although the platform performed very well in the beginning, its user base has quickly eroded. Advertisers are not keen on investing in the platform, seeing more potential in current Meta company Instagram and X. Endgadget reports:
More than half of Threads users have left the app since its July debut, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told staff last Thursday, despite it reaching 100 million sign-ups in its first week. As of early August, the app had about 10 million daily active users, per analytics firm SimilarWeb.
On the brand side, the app has yet to announce advertising options, though marketers have used it for organic and sponsored posts. However, as Digiday recently pointed out, some marketers are questioning whether the platform is worth investing in at the moment. Earlier this summer, a survey of nearly 300 marketers conducted by Capterra found that 70% of marketers “wouldn’t invest in a Twitter alternative unless there were excellent benefits.”
Threads is slowly building up its capabilities while waiting for X to make a mistake. Elon Musks’s controversial actions in the past, such as restricting display limits, could come back and give Threads a boost.
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