Meta Develops Latest Elements for Threads as Engagement Continues to Decline

So what’s recent on Threads, and does anybody still care, with reports that Threads usage is rapidly declining, as people revert back to the social apps they already know and love?

Despite the doomsayers, the Threads team is working to develop recent functionality, including voice posts, a desktop app, hashtag support (perhaps), and more.

First off, Threads is reportedly developing voice notes, which is able to provide one other option to connect within the app.

As you possibly can see in this instance, shared by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Threads users will soon have the ability to connect a voice clip, as well as to pictures and video, to reinforce their posts.

“So what?” I hear you say. Well, while voice notes aren’t an enormous deal for many Western users, where voice elements are essential is in regions where many languages are spoken, yet not everyone can write each as fluently.

In India, for instance, there are over 100 languages spoken throughout the nation, and while many have learned to speak in several audible forms, literacy levels aren’t as high. As such, voice notes serve a direct, practical purpose, and will help to maximise using social apps amongst billions of individuals.

So yeah, it could be no big deal for you, but it surely’s potentially an enormous addition to facilitate broader adoption.

On a desktop app, each Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri have noted that a desktop version of Threads is coming very soon, with the brand new tool already being tested internally by the Threads team.

Earlier this week, Mosseri noted that there are still some bugs within the desktop process, but that it’s indeed close, with Zuckerberg posting a “Soon” emoji in response to an issue concerning the same.

A desktop app will enable journalists and publishers to be more lively on Threads, by having it open and on-screen in amongst their day by day workflow, and that may very well be an enormous step in facilitating more engagement and activity inside the platform.

Finally, on hashtag support, Mosseri appears to be leaning towards not supporting hashtags specifically within the app, with tags as a substitute to be incorporated into general text search.

That makes some sense, though it’ll be interesting to see whether users actually prefer to have clickable tags and conversation links, versus regular text queries.

But as noted, the larger query, after all, is whether or not Threads is already dead, with usage declining, and the app seemingly failing to capitalize on its early momentum.

After its massive debut, which suggested that it may very well be the Twitter alternative that many had been in search of, traffic to Meta’s text-based app has steadily declined, with reports this week suggesting that Threads usage has dropped by 79%, from a high of two.3 million lively users in early July, to simply 576,000 as of the seventh of August.

Clearly, Threads hasn’t been able to take care of that early hype. Hamstrung by functional limitations, the app is currently sitting on 124 million members, which suggests that it’s added only 24 million more users over the past five weeks, after racing to 100 million in its first five days.

After all, nobody would expect Threads to take care of that initial growth rate. However the incontrovertible fact that it’s declined so significantly is a priority, with many now proclaiming the app to be dead on arrival, as Meta fails to understand the true value of what made Twitter great.

So do you have to just wave on the hype train because it departs and move on along with your day?

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily count Threads out entirely just yet.

Meta itself has repeatedly noted that engagement within the app is powerful, which is a superb sign for future potential. After all, Meta would say that, but where Threads has definitely maintained a level of relevance is with journalists, and other high-profile cast-offs from X, who’ve been alienated by Elon Musk’s attacks on the mainstream media, amongst other questionable stances and decisions.

If Threads can maximize its appeal to those cohorts, it still stands a probability to win significant audience share from X.

In some ways, Musk has likely underrated the worth of this audience, and the eye that they carry, and in the event that they start to tug that spotlight elsewhere, that would still make Threads a big and essential app, which fragments the standard Twitter user base.

So will Threads win out? Functional updates will clearly help, and I do think that there’s enough support for the platform, or indeed opposition to X, to fuel the fireplace, and make it a viable alternative.

The numbers immediately aren’t great, however the actual engagement on Threads stays strong, and I can see a number of more significant conversations switching to the app, and away from X, as Elon continues to reiterate his own ideologies through X policy.