The massive influx of users on the Bluesky social network, fueled by the discontent of many former X users, is prompting its rival Threads to reconsider. In order to maintain its dominant position against the competitor which now has more than 20 million users (compared to 10 million in mid-September), the Meta group platform is reviewing its strategy. “We’re rebalancing the algorithm to prioritize content from people you follow. This means that starting today, we’ll recommend less content from accounts you don’t follow. There will be more publications from accounts you follow,” Adam Mosseri, head of Threads and Instagram, indicated a few days ago. This first adjustment risks affecting content creators, who could see the visibility of their publications decrease. But Threads says it is ready to take it on in order to increase the engagement of its more than 275 million monthly active users.
This choice precedes another measurement. The boss of the Meta group, Mark Zuckerberg, indicated on Monday that Threads, created in July 2023, would test the possibility of selecting their default feed with a limited number of users of the application. They will be able to choose between the “For you” algorithmic feed and a feed presenting, in chronological order, the contents of the accounts followed.
To make its platform profitable, Meta also announced around ten days ago the arrival of advertising on Threads. The launch of this economic model, which replicates that of Facebook and Instagram, is planned for January 2025, with a small group of advertisers to start.
EU calls Bluesky to account
The first clouds appeared in the blue sky of the young Bluesky platform, initially created and financed by Twitter, when the social network was still led by its co-founder Jack Dorsey. On Monday, the European Commission ruled that Bluesky, which opened to the general public in February 2023, infringes European regulation of online platforms by not publishing on a dedicated web page precise data concerning the number of users it has. it counts in the EU.
