The Threads app via Instagram has started updating, and that’s a big change. While threads only allowed you to message close friends (that is, accounts you add to your “close friends” list on Instagram), you can now use it to message any Instagram user. As a user of Earth’s only threads, I’m sad.
Okay, so I exaggerated. I’m not the only user of threads – about 220,000 people have been using Instagram’s Threads app in the past year. But that’s less than 0.1 percent of Instagram’s monthly active users, which is more than a billion. And it’s not hard to see why threads aren’t that popular – it essentially takes some of the stuff you can already do with Instagram and asks you to do it on a different app.
But I use threads because it just feels intimate. It is the only messaging app where there is no junk, no small talk, no silence and no huge group chats to ignore. It’s just me and my best buds. The app attacks what you’re doing based on the location and activity of your phone and keeps your close friends up to date with status like “move on”, “out and about,” “chilling” and “low battery”. (Don’t freak out – you can turn this off.) And you can send a photo or video to any close friend on the home screen at the click of a button with the same interface as Snapchat.
I know why Instagram is making this change. The ability to DM any user makes the threads more useful for people who do not use the close friends feature. Facebook also recently launched cross-platform messaging on Instagram and Messenger, bringing some of Messenger’s features to Instagram’s DM. Instagram says it will not be enabled for cross-platform messaging threads, but it shows that the company is trying to integrate its various services and attract more customers.
The update, first seen on Twitter by Matt Navra and Jane Manchan Wong, is not big of a change in practice. The app still separates your DMs from tabs for “close friends” and “everyone else”. The interface looks almost identical. Notifications are only enabled by close friends for close friends, although you can change them.
The Instagram Threads app has basically become a reborn direct app with the latest update that allows messaging with not just close friends but anyone. pic.twitter.com/5JwGDhlejd
– Jane Manchan Wong (@wongmajane) October 6, 2020
Still, this is a change in the philosophy of the update threads. And without the philosophy behind it, I’m not sure what makes threads unique. I don’t see why I should use it on regular Instagram DMs, not to mention Messenger, Snapchat and all the other things I have. Sure, I always had the option to use those apps to message even my closest friends. But threads Only Those people are involved, and that uniqueness has made it exciting for me. The threads felt different.
But I also like apps that don’t try to be everything like every other app. And while the threads didn’t do much, it did really good in one thing – it’s so easy to hit your favorites. If it continues to expand into a similar multipurpose product similar to Instagram Direct, I hope it doesn’t lose that focus.
