Key Points
- Meta is testing a new “communities” feature on its Threads platform.
- The feature creates dedicated spaces for users to discuss specific topics. The goal is to make the platform more organized and engaging as it grows.
- Posts in communities will be ranked for relevance, unlike the current topic feeds.
- The communities a user joins will also influence the recommendations in their main feed.
Meta is testing a new “communities” feature on Threads, a move designed to give the rapidly growing platform a clearer identity and a better way to organize conversations. The new feature creates dedicated spaces for users to discuss specific topics, such as basketball, books, or technology.
As Threads has grown to over 400 million users, Meta is looking for ways to make the platform more engaging and less chaotic. The company says the new communities are “casual spaces for you to share unique takes on topics… with other people who love them too.” Meta has already created over 100 of these spaces for popular topics that are already big on the platform.
The new feature is similar to the topic-based feeds that Threads already has, but with some key differences. Posts within a community will be ranked to show the most relevant content first, a big improvement over the current, more random topic feeds. The communities will also have fun little touches, like custom emojis for liking posts (a basketball for the NBA community, for example).
This isn’t a brand new idea—X (formerly Twitter) launched a similar feature a few years ago. But for Threads, it could be a crucial step in solving one of the platform’s biggest complaints: the main feed’s over-reliance on recommended posts from random accounts.
Meta says that the communities you join will now influence your main feed, which could help make the app’s recommendations much more relevant to your actual interests.
