Meta tries to make Threads more like Bluesky. Again

The biggest sign that a social media platform is on the rise? When the Meta starts to copy it.

Stories only arrived on Instagram in 2016, after Snapchat showed that the concept of ephemeral content was popular. Reels were added in 2020 and, the following year, they were also included on Facebook, inspired by the great success of TikTok.

When BeReal started gaining prominence with its dual-camera format, Meta quickly added the feature to Instagram. Now, with Threads, the company appears to be repeating the formula, this time taking inspiration from Bluesky.

The mass stampede of Elon Musk's X/Twitter following the US presidential elections resulted in a significant increase in the number of users on both Threads and Bluesky.

Meta's platform registered 35 million new profiles in three weeks, reaching 275 million in total, while Bluesky saw its base grow by 10 million, surpassing 25 million users.

But although Threads is technically leading the race to be the “next Twitter”, at least in absolute numbers, its competitor has something that its users, with a touch of irony, call “charm”. It’s simply more “attractive,” generating more headlines and conversations — especially about politics, a topic Threads decided not to prioritize.

If there are still any doubts about Bluesky's recent success, just look at Threads' attempts to “take inspiration from” – or, more precisely, copy – their ideas.

Less than two weeks after the US elections, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, announced that the platform would begin testing a new feeds personalized, allowing users to organize content according to their interests. It's hard to ignore that Bluesky has already been using a similar system since July 2023.

And the “inspirations” don’t stop there. A frequent complaint about Threads is its feed non-chronological, which often shows old posts out of context. Meanwhile, Bluesky, with its feed chronologically, it continued to attract more daily users.

In response, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that the platform would begin showing “less recommended content from accounts you don’t follow and more posts from profiles you do follow.”

This change could be seen as a reaction to Bluesky's success – or, perhaps, as a grand coincidence. But what came next made it clear that it was a direct answer. Last week, Mosseri announced that Threads is testing its own version of a feature that, in many ways, is already a Bluesky trademark: Starter Packs.

The mass departure from X/Twitter resulted in an increase in the number of users on both Threads and Bluesky.

Introduced to the platform in June, this feature allows users to recommend groups of profiles in specific categories – from “geology experts” and “people who make me laugh” to “columnists from Fast Company”. This way, other users can follow everyone at once or select just a few.

Here’s how Mosseri described Meta’s version: “an easy way to find and follow collections of profiles posting about popular topics on Threads.”

It's not difficult to understand why Threads is in “copy and paste” mode: it's the classic strategy of Zuckerberg's company. Facebook itself arose from an idea supposedly inspired by the Harvard Connection concept, by the Winklevoss brothers.

Still, Bluesky has already established itself as the main alternative to X/Twitter, while Threads is seen as a more popular generic option – almost like a Mastodon with a strong brand. Making him more like Bluesky won't be enough to change that perception.

Most users who have migrated from X/Twitter – including celebrities, journalists, politicians and so-called “provocateurs” – have already made their choice and are not willing to start from scratch again.

Threads may attract people who are still unsure about where to go, but it is unlikely to convince a significant number of users to change their minds. In fact, the more you try to imitate Bluesky, the greater the chance that “blueskyers” will prefer to remain in the competition.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case, it is also a clear sign of desperation.

---