Meta’s Threads app looks to make it big with users after going through an unpredictable 2023 launch.

To help gain more engagement and signups, the app seems to be keen on testing a series of changes including trending topic searches. This would be related to hot-selling subjects that reign supreme in the world of social media so users are well aware.

The news was confirmed by social media expert and app developer Alessandro Paluzzi recently who shared screengrabs on what the feature might appear when rolled out.

Screenshot: Alessandro Paluzzi / Threads

The heading to look out for here would be ‘Today’s Topic’ and it would be placed right underneath the bar used for searches, he showed. On the other hand, he added another post that showcased how Threads could include features that display new and ongoing happenings in the world of sports.

It’s all about what the world happens to be engaging with at this moment in time. And content specialists would be required to meet a respective set of guidelines so topics must be reviewed in that regard.

In other news, the app seems busy changing its mind about how users can look for trending topics. Now, it’s giving the green signal to chronological searches, thanks to a new toggle feature that was rolled out as a part of the app’s new version.

This rollout would allow users to filter out searches by the newest or latest, but that’s only if they select the option that enables this.

Image: Radu Oncescu / Threads

All users have to do is opt in and take advantage of chronologically placed search results to ensure they keep tabs on what’s hot and what’s not, all based on when the content was published.

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This is designed to keep track of any conversations taking place in real-time as well as what’s trending on the platform. So we must call it a noteworthy shift from the school of thought that the app had in the past.

One month back, Meta’s Trends had a completely different perspective on this front. The head, Adam Mosseri mentioned how such features might end up giving rise to loopholes in privacy and security.

To better clarify the ordeal, he shed light on how such acts would give rise to spammers adding content of all kinds simply through the use of specific tags or terms.

It’s been a popular tactic across different social media platforms where bad actors try to use trending hashtags to look for specific words, alongside junk. This is to provide all kinds of exposure aimed in the direction of those who are least suspecting it.

Now, it’s a whole different ball game. The team at Threads has been working long and hard to try and get rid of such loopholes and by the looks of it, they seem to have overcome the challenges they were facing with this rollout and another one mentioned above, the display of Trending Topics.

Before we forget, it must be mentioned how the app limits tags for a particular topic to just one for each post. And that would simultaneously affect the user’s experience negatively.

We’re quite keen on learning more about how and why the app’s team has opted to completely backflip and perhaps that might have to do with how it wishes to compete with other arch-rivals in the industry like X. So if they want more engagement in real-time, it’s bound to come with the launch of such features in-stream. What do you think?

We feel a lot of this update probably is linked to the fact that Threads has weighed the pros and cons, where the former is better engagement and the latter is spam. Only after seeing the pros being greater have they decided to charge ahead and we’re sure users will love the news.

After all, the ability for any platform to stay above all others in terms of happening events can really drive more engagement as we’ve seen on the X app.

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