The battle over who will get all the users of X is now on as it has turned into a complete pit. Topics has just started rolling out its custom feeds feature to compete with rival Bluesky. Individual tapes has long been a hallmark of Bluesky and now Threads users can join in on the action. Meta announced was testing special tapes just last weekso these tests should be successful. Either that or they want to stop Bluesky’s continuous speed.
Simply put, this feature allows users to pin theme-based feeds to the app’s home screen. This allows people to navigate through additional feeds beyond the algorithmic “for you” feed. That’s a good thing, because Thread’s current “for you” algorithm is “who likes cats?” can be easily managed by sending posts like I literally saw 400 posts like this in my feed, all looking for engagement. I love cats, but come on.
Either way, users can create a custom feed by searching for keywords and tapping the “…” menu to get started. A feed will be created based on the keyword, although the toolkit allows for more detailed adjustments. For example, users can add custom profiles to personalize each feed. Threads enthusiasts can create up to 128 individual threads.
When it comes to custom threads, Threads has a significant advantage over Bluesky. Making one in Bluesky is a process. It took me about two seconds to make a Star Trek feed on Threads.
Despite Bluesky’s steady growth, it’s still a small player compared to Threads. Bluesky just announced 20 million users, which is great, but Threads has over 275 million users. Themes are also growing by about a million users per day Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s latest post.
