Threads Announced Updates to Search, Video Viewing and Trends

Threads continues to roll out more updates and improvements ahead of the busy holiday season, while the announcements also coincide with a rise in interest in Bluesky. Which may or may not be related.

Either way, on Friday, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced that Threads is testing out some changes to how it displays trending topics in the app, while it’s also rolling out new search filters in order to expand on its discovery elements.

First off, on trending topics, Mosseri says that Threads is expanding its listing of AI-generated trends in the app, in order to add more context to what’s generating discussion.

This is an example of the current Threads trending display, which was launched to all U.S. users back in March.

The new listing will include more trends and more AI elements.

As per Mosseri:

“We’re starting a test showing more than five trending topics on Threads, and we’re using Meta AI to summarize those trends. You can get to all the content, but you can also get a little bit of a description of what’s going on.”

To be clear, the trends themselves have always been determined by Meta’s AI systems, as per its original outline of the process. The only changes here are the expansion of listed trends, and the inclusion of an AI-generated summary on each, as opposed to a highlighted post related to the topic.

So it’s not a radical change in process, as such, though it will make Threads trending listing much more like X’s AI-generated topic summaries:

As you can see, X’s Grok-generated trend summaries provide a description of each trend, which is the same direction that Threads is now heading. Though those Grok summaries haven’t always been accurate, so it will likely take some time and testing before Threads expands this to all users.

Mosseri says that this is initially being tested with a subset of U.S. users.

Next up, Threads is also updating its Search element to provide more filters and tools to help you find relevant posts.

“In the new Search experience, you’ll be able to search within a specific date range or search for posts from a single account.”

As you can see in this example, Threads’ updated search experience will make it easier to drill down to more specific results, which will be a big help for social media managers in particular.

Improved search has been a much-requested feature, as has video viewing in landscape, which is yet another new Threads update:

As per Threads engineer Tim Oliver, now, if you want to see videos on Threads in landscape format, you can just turn your phone while viewing.

Which is a relatively small but also significant update, which will being Threads more into line with other online video experiences, while it’ll also make it a better medium for watching, say, sports highlights, which remains a key element that Threads needs to capture if it wants to beat out the former bird app.

Though as noted, Elon’s X project doesn’t seem to be the thing that’s really occupying the Threads team’s attention at present, with the rise of Bluesky seemingly prompting at least some concern at Meta HQ. Bluesky is still much smaller than Threads, so it’s not like it poses an immediate threat, in terms of taking the real-time social crown. But the momentum shift behind Bluesky has raised eyebrows, which may have prompted Threads to get more active in rolling out its updates.

Or this was all planned, ahead of an expected rise in usage over the holidays.

Either way, more Threads features, and more updates to the experience, as Threads continues to establish itself as a legitimate force in the social media space.