X competitor Instagram Threads is getting an improved search interface, the company announced on Monday. The app, which offers a meta version of Elon Musk’s X but is built on top of the Instagram social network, introduces a new way to search for specific posts, allowing users to filter their search by user profiles and date ranges.
It’s not as comprehensive as Advanced Search X, which today allows users to narrow down queries by language, keywords, exact phrases, excluded words, hashtags, and other parameters. But it makes it easier for Threads users to find specific posts. It will also bring Threads search closer to Bluesky search, which also allows users to filter their search by user profiles, date ranges, and more using advanced queries. However, in the Bluesky app itself, not all of the filtering options are yet visible in the user interface.
Until the latest update, searching by topic was quite simple. You could search by keyword or keywords, but you could only filter the results by two options – Top for posts with the most comments or Recent for the most recent posts.
The new search feature will be available to global users in the coming weeks, the Threads account notes in a new post.
In recent days, Meta has been rapidly rolling out new features to combat the threat posed by social media startup Bluesky, which has quickly gained popularity as another alternative to X. In September, Bluesky had more than 9 million users, but in the weeks following the US election, the number skyrocketed as users left X due to owner Elon Musk’s political leanings and various policy changes, such as plans to change the way blocks work and allow artificial intelligence companies to learn from X users’ data. Today, Bluesky claims almost 24 million users.
To counter Bluesky’s potential, Meta’s Threads has released new features, including the ability for users to choose their own default feed, a design change that makes it easier to navigate between feeds, and an updated algorithm. Meta Threads was also seen to be developing its own version of Bluesky’s custom recommendation lists called Starter Packs.
