Meta’s Threads is now developing its very own Bluesky’s ‘Starter Packs’

Avijit SahNovember 28, 2024

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Meta’s Threads is now developing its very own Bluesky’s ‘Starter Packs’

A feature that draws inspiration from one of Bluesky’s more well-liked additions—the idea of “Starter Packs,” or hand-curated lists of recommended users that assist newcomers in finding people to follow—is being developed by Meta in an attempt to slow down the growth of the social network Bluesky, a rival to X and Meta’s Threads. Screenshots of the functionality, which is still in development, show that Meta’s version of these Starter Packs will also recommend profiles that are “handpicked by people on Threads.”

Unlike the trend that is built off back in Instagram’s existing social graph. The Bluesky also going to need a way to quickly and easily connect the new users. Instead of importing the new users and the address books the startup introduced the concept of the Starter Packs that curated the lists and the recommended users that anyone in the community can make. All of these lists can center around the topics of interest geographic industries fan groups languages or anything else.

The features have become so popular there are new websites that organize everyone’s Bluesky Starter Packs into a searchable database. The Starter Packs also be found shared by the others in the Bluesky feed and the available as the tab of any user’s profile.

Due to the popularity of the feature, websites have emerged that compile all users’ Bluesky Starter Packs into a searchable database. Starter Packs are accessible as a tab on users’ accounts and are frequently shared by other users in the Bluesky feed. (A TechCrunch Starter Pack is also available.)

Since Threads can already link users to Instagram accounts they follow and use additional signals from Meta’s family of apps to determine users’ interests when recommending accounts to follow in its user interface, it is obviously not necessary to develop a Starter Pack-like feature.

The popularity of creating and sharing Starter Packs on Bluesky, which enables users to instantly interact and feel a part of a developing community, may, however, pose a danger to Meta.

Chris Messina, a reverse engineer and technologist, has found that Threads seems to be creating its own Starter Pack substitute. Entering a string of code in iOS Safari that leads to a new feature called “Recommended Follow Lists” will enable the feature.