It’s been less than a week since Instagram launched Threads, its text-based alternative to Twitter, and the team at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are already looking to rollout new features to improve the app – one of which could be a “hilarious” jab at Twitter owner Elon Musk if it’s implemented the right way.
Released just days after the bird app was marred by outages and temporary limits on the number of tweets users could view a day, Threads has already been criticised for its lack of a Following feed (it’s currently algorithmically generated) and the absence of an alt text feature for blind and visually impaired users – amongst other issues.
Now, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has confirmed his team are looking to introduce new – and much-requested – features to the app.
In a post on Threads on Tuesday, he wrote: “With so many people joining [Threads] so fast these last six days (six days!) the team has been entirely focused on keeping the lights on and fixing bugs.
“But we’re starting to [prioritise] the obvious missing features, like a following feed, the edit button, and post search.
“We’re clearly way out over our skis on this, but the team is pumped to start shipping improvements this week.”
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However, it’s one reply to Mosseri’s post which has got users all excited at the possibility for some delicious “schadenfreude”.
Writer and photographer Craig Mod suggested: “It would be hilarious if the first thing you ship is a free edit button.”
Hilarious because over on Twitter, the feature is paywalled behind a subscription to Twitter Blue – the same £11 a month offer which affords users the once-coveted blue checkmark, but also the ability to upload videos up to two hours’ long, and post tweets up to 25,000 characters in length.
That’s five times the character limit on Threads, just to put that into perspective.
And so, the idea of Instagram embarrassing Musk once more (in addition to the 100 million users the app boasts already in six days alone) with a free edit feature has amused many other individuals who flocked to Threads from Twitter.
“This idea is giving me chaotic energy and I’m here for it,” commented one.
Another claimed: “This would destroy bird app [sic].”
“The one thing Twitter would NOT give us for free. Yep. That is where I would start.”
Not just that, but Mosseri himself has liked Mod’s tweet.
So now we wait…
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