![[Update: It’s now official] Threads is Instagram’s Messaging App for its Close Friends Feature](https://techweez.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Instagram-Close-Friends.jpg)
UPDATE: Threads is now available for iOS and Android. Scroll to the bottom for more information.
Instagram hasn’t stopped coming up with new features to entice its users to only use the Facebook-owned platform. The latest thing the giant photo-sharing platform is working on is Threads. Threads is a new messaging app Facebook is developing for Instagram that will allow its users to share their status and location.
What exactly is Threads?
You might ask why is Facebook developing this messaging app when they recently shut down Direct, another stand-alone messaging app for Instagram. Well, Thread serves a different purpose.
Threads is designed as a companion app for Instagram and is meant for a more intimate sharing with your “Close Friends“, the Instagram feature that is geared for you to share Stories to a specific audience where you post Stories that can only be viewed to a select group of your followers on Instagram.
The app invites those on your “Close Friends” list to automatically share their location, speed and battery life with friends(do people actually do this, if they do, hit me up).
You also get to utilise Instagram’s other features such as text, photo and video messages.
Despite killing off Direct, Instagram executives were adamant on building new messaging experiences for its users and Threads is likely it.
At the moment, the app is being tested internally at Facebook.
For now, Threads doesn’t show your real-time location and shows something like a friend is “on the move”
How Threads will work
According to The Verge, you will be able to update your Status manually on Threads but they will also appear in the main home feed together with messages, unlike Direct where your messages couldn’t be accessed on the stand-alone app.
Threads will have the same user experience as Instagram’s in-app messaging such that in your central feed is where messages from your close friends will appear and a green dot will show who’s online. Stories will be viewed from within the app too, where you can also post photos or videos to close friends using the camera feature in Threads.
When is it launching?
No launch dates have been set and as it is an app in testing, it may also never ship publicly but with Facebook’s push to privacy, Threads may be the app that they think will bring private messaging to the company.
https://twitter.com/jamespmcleod/status/1166118223978344448
Personally, I’m curious and can’t wait for it. On the other hand, wy can’t this part of the main Instagram app. I’m conflicted, send help.
People are sharing their fears concerning Threads
https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1166118157892968448
Letting friends to spy on each other, anywhere, anytime. How wholesome ☺️ https://t.co/x6ZWt3e4s2
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 26, 2019
https://twitter.com/chillmage/status/1166111238675410947
This was funny
https://twitter.com/chrismessina/status/1166118460910383104
Can you imagine your supposed "close friends" automatically updating you on their BATTERY LIFE? I'd be doing some serious culling. https://t.co/03qP5CTtnW
— Amy Bucher (@amybphd) August 26, 2019
Sharing the state of your battery life with friends is the social network I’ve been waiting my whole life for https://t.co/3HVRgZxnJ2
— Kerry Flynn 🐶 (@kerrymflynn) August 26, 2019
Update 3/10/2019
Threads has gone live for Android and iOS and is available globally. Threads will only show friends in your Close Friends list. Features packed in the app include Facebook’s “Your Emoji” status feature. Threads Status and Auto-Status will be conversation starters.
