Facebook is working on a new app called Threads to battle with Snapchat. The app will promote sharing your status, location and more with your close friends. Facebook is internally testing the app.
Threads is designed to encourage users to share more information with their close friends. The app will automatically update information such as their location, speeds and battery life of the device with their friends. It will also enable sharing posts, text, photos, and videos. Facebook has integrated Instagram’s creative tools in Threads.
The tech news site, The Verge first reported the development of Facebook’s new app. The app builds on the “Close Friends” feature that was introduced in Instagram last year. Close friends own users to specify a subset of followers. The users can share the photos only with this closed and selected group of followers.
With Threads, Facebook wants to offer a frictionless experience by automatically updating the app with information about their friends. The app and service is clone of Snapchat’s “Snap Map” feature. Instagram-rival messaging platform, Snapchat shows the physical location of Snapchat friends as well as selects a few public posts. Before the creation of Close Friends feature, such a service would have been difficult to implement on Instagram.
Facebook experimented with a standalone messaging app, Direct. The company later integrated it in Instagram app. The company has always been interested in building new messaging experiences. As part of the broader consolidation, the employees who work on messaging were moved to the Facebook Messenger team earlier this year.
Snapchat users spend more time using the app than average Instagram user does. Facebook has always been under direct pressure from Snapchat. The company implemented the Stories feature from Snapchat in its own app last year. Threads is another attempt by Facebook to clone the popular app and later integrate it in one of its own platforms.
