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Hoping to cool some of the momentum behind the social network Bluesky, a competitor to People to follow. The Meta version of these starter packs will also suggest profiles “carefully selected by the folks at Threads,” according to screenshots of the feature, which is still in development.
Unlike Threads, which was built on the back of Instagram’s existing social graph, Bluesky needed a way to quickly and easily connect new users with others in its community who might find their posts interesting. Instead of importing users’ address books, the startup introduced the concept of “starter packs,” which are curated lists of recommended users that anyone in the community can create.
These lists can be centered around topics of interest, geographies, industries, fan groups, languages, or anything else.
This feature has become very popular and there are now websites, e.g Blueskystarterpack.comwhich organizes everyone’s Bluesky Starter Packs into a searchable database. Starter packs shared by others can also often be found in the Bluesky feed and are available as a tab on users’ profiles. (There too TechCrunch Starter Pack!)
Of course, Threads doesn’t necessarily need to create a Starter Pack-like feature, since it’s already able to connect users to accounts they follow on Instagram and can leverage other signals from the Meta suite of apps to infer users’ interests when suggesting others do so. Follow in the Topics UI.
However, Meta may feel threatened by how popular creating and sharing starter packs has become on Bluesky, allowing people to make connections instantly and feel part of a growing community.
Technologist and reverse engineer Recently discovered Chris Messina Threads appears to be designing its own Starter Pack replacement. The feature can be accessed by entering a string of code in Safari on iOS that references a new feature called “Recommended Follow Lists.”
On the screen that pops up, Threads offers lists of “Profiles to Follow” where various suggested user lists will be provided. In the current test, only one suggested user list was displayed: a list called “NBA Threads.”
The screenshot attributed the creation of the NBA roster to an individual Threads user, suggesting that the rosters themselves will be created by people at Threads, not the company itself.
Meta was asked to comment on the new development but no response was immediately provided.
TechCrunch was able to test the feature, as instructed by Messina, and was also able to show us it on iOS. This doesn’t mean that Threads will definitely release the feature to the public, but it’s clearly something that’s being explored.
In recent weeks, Meta has increasingly acted as if she saw Blosky as a threat.
The company publicly disputed third-party data that found Bluesky was narrowing the gap with Threads, and then proceeded to roll out other Bluesky-inspired features like personalized feeds and the ability to change your default feed from the “for you” algorithmic feed to something else. It has also tweaked its algorithm to start showing you more content from accounts you follow.
In addition, after the US elections, the threads started Circular as a reminder That you can adjust your political content settings. The move came after backlash over its previous decision to limit the recommendation of political content across the app and on Instagram — a choice that led some users to adopt Bluesky instead.
Meta also announced this week Topics added 35 million new users In November so far. It was an apparent response to continued coverage of Bluesky’s rapid growth, which has seen the company go from having more than 9 million users in September to nearly 23 million.
Instagram header Adam Mosseri acknowledged the topics That Meta shipped “some stuff” on the app without testing them first, in response to a post about the competitive threat to Bluesky.
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