Instagram, a Facebook company is developing a new snapchat-like messaging app called Threads. The upcoming app is meant to promote constant, intimate sharing between users and their closest friends. According to The Verge, Threads is designed as a companion app to Instagram, invites users to automatically share their location, speed, and battery life with friends, along with more typical text, photo, and video messages using Instagram’s creative tools.
The app, which is designed for sharing with your “close friends” list on Instagram, is now being tested internally at Facebook. You can also update your status manually, with statuses appearing in the main feed along with messages. It’s the latest effort to automate status sharing using mobile phone sensors and one-tap status sharing.
It should be noted that Instagram has Direct it’s own standalone messaging app it has been working on since 2017 called Direct, but in May it ceased work. According to Fortune, Instagram employees who work on messaging were moved to the Facebook Messenger team earlier this year as part of a broader consolidation between the parent company and its acquisition. Facebook has always remained interested in building new messaging experiences like Threads, according to its executives.
Threads is built around your close friends and this strategy is expected to be more popular just like Snapchat’s messaging implementation. Snapchat users reportedly spend more time inside the app than the average Instagram user does and Facebook wants a piece of this long coveted Snapchat’s strong engagement among younger users.
The foundation and principle use of Threads appears to be messaging, and it looks very similar to the existing messaging product inside Instagram. If your friend has posted a story recently, you can view that from inside Threads as well, this a feature that Snapchat already has. Threads also has a camera, which you can use to capture photos and videos and send them to your close friends. With all said, it’s still unclear when Threads might launch
