Oh, Elon is not going to like this.
According to a new discovery by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Meta’s Twitter clone Threads is currently working on a new update that would make it somewhat easier for Threads users to follow all of the same profiles in the app that they currently follow on X.
As you can see in this example, the option would provide an additional “Creators from X” option within your following tools on Threads, which would then guide you through the process of how to download your X follower info, and upload that to Threads.
Though there are few qualifiers that would impact its utility.
For one, it’s not an automated process, as you have to manually download your X info, then upload that to Threads, in order to match up the data. Which is somewhat tedious, and if past social platform updates are anything to go on, I’d be confident in suggesting that most people simply won’t bother, as they’d rather just log on and jump-in.
It’s also unlikely to be 100% accurate, as the Threads system would be looking to match X user data with the info that it has, and there’s no guarantee that the profiles you follow on X have used the same info on Threads.
So it wouldn’t be as valuable as a simple tap-to-follow process, which would be the ideal in this approach. But maybe, by making it a little easier to port your community from one app to the other, that will get more people making the switch, and ensure that Threads continues to benefit from X users fleeing the app.
Though there’s no real indication that X users are still jumping ship at high rates.
Despite a heap of users seemingly making the move away from X over the past year, the platform has maintained that it’s still serving 250 million daily actives, which is the exact same amount that it had when Elon Musk took over at the app in late 2022.
So it’s not like X is bleeding audience, but then again, the broader backlash against Elon Musk, as a result of his increasing political presence, could be set to spark a new migration away from the app, which could be what Meta’s preparing for with this potential update.
But overall, I’m not sure how valuable it would really be, and how many people would actually use it, as opposed to manually searching and connecting in the app.
But it could be another way to facilitate the X switch.
And maybe, that could help Threads maintain its growth momentum.
