Meta is developing a feature inspired by Bluesky’s “Starter Packs” to help newcomers find people to follow, in an effort to slow Bluesky’s growth
Screenshots of the functionality, which is still in development, show that Meta’s version of these Starter Packs will also recommend profiles that are “handpicked by people on Threads.”
Unlike Threads, which is based on Instagram’s existing social graph, Bluesky wanted a mechanism to swiftly and easily connect new users to other members of its community whose posts they might find interesting. As an alternative to importing users’ contact books, the startup proposed “Starter Packs,” curated lists of suggested users that anyone in the community can create.
These lists can focus on hobbies, regions, professions, fandoms, languages, or anything else.
Due to the popularity of the service, websites such as Blueskystarterpack.com now compile all users’ Bluesky Starter Packs into a searchable database. Users can access Starter Packs as a tab on their accounts, and other users frequently share them in the Bluesky feed. There is also a TechCrunch Starter Pack available.
Since Threads can already link users to Instagram accounts they follow and use additional signals from Meta’s family of apps to determine users’ interests when recommending accounts to follow in its user interface, developing a Starter Pack-like feature is clearly not necessary.
The popularity of creating and sharing Starter Packs on Bluesky, which enable users to instantly interact and feel a part of a developing community, may, however, pose a danger to Meta.
Chris Messina, a reverse engineer and technologist, has discovered that Threads appears to be developing its own replacement for the Starter Pack. You can enable the new feature “Recommended Follow Lists” by entering a string of codes in iOS Safari
Threads presents lists of “profiles to follow” on the pop-up screen, providing various suggested user lists. The current test displayed only one suggested user list, “NBA Threads.” The screenshot indicated that an individual Threads user, not the company itself, created the NBA list.
We asked Meta for comment on the new development, but they did not respond right away. TechCrunch was able to test the feature per Messina’s instructions, and it was also able to make it appear on iOS. This doesn’t guarantee that Threads will introduce the feature to the public, but it’s evident they are actively exploring it.
In recent weeks, Meta has increasingly behaved as if it sees Bluesky as a threat. The company publicly refuted third-party data that suggested Bluesky was gaining ground on Threads and subsequently introduced additional Bluesky-inspired features, such as custom feeds and the option to switch your default feed from the algorithmic “For You” feed to a different one. It also adjusted its algorithm to start showing more content from accounts you follow.
In addition, following the U.S. elections, Threads began circulating a reminder that you could adjust your political content settings. The decision to restrict the recommendation of political content on the app and Instagram faced backlash, leading some users to switch to Bluesky.
This week, Meta also announced that Threads added 35 million new users in November so far. It was an obvious response to the ongoing coverage of Bluesky’s rapid growth, which has seen the company go from over 9 million users in September to nearly 23 million now. Instagram head Adam Mosseri admitted on Threads that Meta had shipped “a few things” on the app without testing them first, in response to a post about Bluesky’s competitive threat.
