Thredz is gearing up to launch the “Popular Topics” feature in an attempt to better compete with X. The update was discovered by user William Max, who shared a screenshot of it accidentally posted by one of the app’s employees.
The screenshot revealed a numbered list of popular topics along with the number of actively discussed topics for each item.
It’s suspected that Max was supposed to share the screenshot in the internal summary used exclusively by Meta employees, where trending popular topics are displayed.
Unlike X, it doesn’t appear that Thredz’s list of popular topics is accompanied by other topic lists categorized by subject matter, such as news, sports, entertainment, or the “For You” summary list.
Adding the “Popular Topics” list is another step towards making Thredz more competitive with X, the app, owned by Meta, aims to capitalize on the disruptions and ongoing changes in the social network owned by billionaire Elon Musk to encourage users to join Thredz instead.
Other platforms are also seeking to acquire X users, including the open-source Mastodon platform, and Jack Dorsey-backed Blue Sky, along with emerging apps like Pebble and Spil.
Thredz experienced a drop in usage after quickly reaching 100 million users faster than any other app before it, the Thredz team swiftly introduced new features, including timeline support, a web app, easy account switching, and search support.
However, search alone cannot make Thredz a competitor to X. Combining search with popular topics is what helped make X the preferred platform for breaking news, real-time conversations, and discussions.
There are some internal concerns about Thredz’s embrace of news, with top leadership being hesitant to fully commit due to potential issues associated with news adoption.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, commented, “We’re not opposed to news because it exists on Thredz. We’re trying to avoid over-promising and under-delivering, which we’ve done several times in the past,” in response to information about the company’s potential concerns regarding news distribution.
