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Instagram Working on Separate Messaging App: Threads. Is This Necessary?

By Laura Tucker
News Instagram Messaging Threads Featured

One thing the Internet has brought us is various different methods of messaging. Along with sending a text through SMS, we can also message through WhatsApp, Facebook, and SnapChat, among others.

Instagram is developing yet another messaging app: Threads. This app will be a way to share a message with just your closest friends. Do we need another way to send someone a message?

Crowded Market

Granted, it’s great to have a messaging forum that works the way you want it to. Not everyone prefers SMS, and that’s okay – these people can then use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. But is anyone really looking for an additional messaging app?

Facebook must know this. It has to be why they acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. They realized their own platform wasn’t enough to scratch everyone’s itch.

Despite this, they still want more. The company is developing a new messaging app, Threads, that is being designed for more intimate messaging between users and close friends. But don’t we already do this with the other apps?

Designed to be a companion app for Instagram, it will automatically share your location, photo, and video messages with the friends you’ve designated as “close friends.” It still shares more of what you expect with a messaging app as well. It’s currently being tested internally at Facebook.

This isn’t their first foray into an Instagram messaging app. They were working on one for the past two years. Beta testers were frustrated, though, with having to switch between apps to share a message.

News Instagram Messaging Threads App

Nevertheless, Facebook remained interested in attaching some new type of messaging experience, though the employees working on messaging were moved to the Facebook Messenger team earlier this year as the company worked on consolidating efforts.

Threads is now being tested, with the company’s belief that messaging just with your close friends may be the way to go. This happens to be the way many use Snapchat, with data showing that the average Snapchat user spends more time in the app than the average Instagram user spends in its app.

The Verge was able to review screenshots of Threads and report that if you opt in to automatic sharing, Threads will regularly update your status to show your close friends what you’re up to. It does not show your real-time location but may tell your friends when you leave a location.

Manual updates are allowed as well with statuses that appear along with the messages. There have been other apps in the past to try this same approach, yet they weren’t hugely successful.

There will also be a green dot attached to your friends if they’re currently active, which sounds similar to Facebook Messenger. If your friend recently posted a story, you can view that in Threads. To work with Instagram’s focus on images, a camera is part of the app to capture photos and send to your close friends.

Future of Messaging at Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that he sees private messaging as the company’s future, so it seems they’re going to keep working on such a service until they hit a homerun. Threads may or may not represent that. There is no known data of when Threads will launch publicly.

Are you an Instagram user? Would you be interested in using the Threads messaging service? Do we need another messaging app? Tell us what you think below in the comments.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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