Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today that its social networking thread will eventually begin testing a DM (direct message) inbox that is separate from the users’ Instagram DM inbox. This means that users don’t have to use Instagram or switch apps to chat with anyone on the platform.
The company will initially test the feature in a limited number of regions, including Hong Kong, Thailand and Argentina, and plan to deploy it elsewhere soon. The chat feature is currently limited to one-to-one conversations rather than group messaging.
This could be seen as a positive development of Meta’s latest social networks. As TechCrunch pointed out earlier, many people have a set of followers in their threads that are different to what they do on Instagram. Additionally, if you are using the app, it is likely that some threaded users are not using their Instagram accounts.
Instagram has been thinking about how to approach thread DMs for a while.
Last year, the company was working on a prototype, allowing users to send messages directly to their Instagram inbox from the thread app.
In 2023, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he hopes the social networks can make their Instagram inbox work for threads. His idea at the time was that people had similar followers on both social networks, but that’s not necessarily true.
When the thread debuted in July 2023, it relied heavily on Instagram’s network effects, with the ability to quickly connect Instagram users with friends and other creators. However, after more than 20 months of existence, the company has noticed that people are forming different kinds of networks on threads due to the public nature and similarity with other short-length apps such as X and Bluesky.
Meta said they decided to create another DM inbox feature because they want a way for threaded users to have a one-on-one conversation without switching apps.
It’s good that threads finally have their DM inbox available, but the company is late to roll it out.
Rival social network BlueSky introduced DMS in May 2024. The Meta announcement comes days after Elon Musk-owned XCHAT feature released with support for group messaging, disappearance mode and file sharing to improve DMS.