Threads rolls out "Custom feeds" globally to all users
Big news for fans of Threads, the social networking app from Meta. In announcement today, Threads is now officially launching custom feeds for users globally, allowing you to personalize what you see in your main feed. This comes after a period of testing and is likely a response to the growing popularity of other platforms like Bluesky, which already offer this feature.
The official Threads account made the announcement that Custom Feeds were live starting today | Image credit — PhoneArena
I remember when Threads first launched. It was a bit barebones, and users quickly pointed out the lack of custom feeds as a major drawback. Many people felt frustrated with the lack of a chronological feed, which made it hard to keep up with their favorite accounts and content.
However, now with the global rollout of custom feeds, Threads users will have more control over their social media experience. You'll be able to create feeds that show only the accounts you're most interested in, making it easier to stay engaged with the content you care about.
Instructions on how to use the new feature are not clearly given in the announcement, but most people have figured out how it works. To create a new feed you will need to long press on the tab of either of the existing "For you" or "Following" feeds — or you could do a search and you will see three dots to the right of the search field that you can press -- — and tap on "Create a new feed." Once you do this, you will see the option to search for users to add, then to name your feed and create it.
Threads custom feed creation process | Image credit — PhoneArena
As expected, custom feeds cannot be set as the default feed that loads when you open the app, so you will still have to pull down on the "For you" feed to see the "Following" and any user-created custom feeds beside them. You also cannot reorder custom feeds to appear before the two default feeds, as those are pinned to appear first, but you can reorder the custom feeds themselves.
It's no secret that Threads has been facing stiff competition from other platforms, especially Bluesky. Bluesky's custom feeds have been a big hit with users, and it seems Threads has taken notice. By offering similar functionality, Threads hopes to keep its users engaged and attract new ones.
Personally, I'm excited about this update. I've been using Threads since its launch, and the lack of custom feeds has always been a bit of a pain point for me. I still wish there was a way to set a custom feed as your main feed, but I guess we'll take what we can one step at a time.
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