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It’s interesting to see how quickly Meta has changed his stance on DMs on Threads.
After initially resisting calls to add a messaging option to the app and pushing users to use DMs on IG instead, Threads rolled out its own messaging option in July last year. It then expanded that to group chats in October, and has continued to add more DM features over time as it wants to maximize Threads as a complete Twitter alternative and continue to grow the app’s user base.
And now Threads wants to go even further than other messaging options, adding in-stream games to the messaging interface.
As you can see in there this exampleposted by app researcher Alessandro PaluzziThreads is working on a basketball shooting game that would be available through your chat option. The broader idea of the game, which you would control with simple swipes, would be to challenge your chat connections with simple games via DM.
That could be an interesting way to increase DM engagement, and simple in-stream games like this have also worked on other apps, like LinkedIn, which has seen solid levels of engagement with its puzzle games.
While it feels a bit cheap, it’s a bit like squeezing the numbers. As more people spend more time in the app playing games, total time spent will increase, as will return usage, and it feels a bit misleading to apply this to the app’s overall engagement metrics.
But if it works and makes the numbers look better, you can bet platforms will try it, and it could be a nice addition if it ever gets released.
Meta has confirmed (to TechCrunch) that it is experimenting with the option, but has not yet reached the public testing phase.
Meta is also experimenting with it live chats for Threads communitieswhich is another extension of DM engagement.
Again, it’s interesting to see how Meta has changed its approach to DMs on Threads, now that the threat of FTC action has been eliminated and it no longer needs to weld all its apps together to avoid a potential breakup.
For years, the FTC hounded Meta over its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, with the regulator seeking to force Meta to divest the two companies, arguing that the acquisitions of both had significantly reduced competition in the digital advertising market.
In response, Meta formulated a plan to merge all its various DM inboxes (from WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger) into one unified platform, allowing users to continue their conversations from any app into the other, etc. That would provide some efficiency benefit, but the main driver seemed to be that it would connect all of Meta’s apps together, making it impossible to disconnect IG or WhatsApp from the infrastructure even if requested.
Meta had been working on its messaging merger for years, but went quiet in 2024. Then, last November, Meta finally won its case against the FTC, seemingly paving the way for the company to step back from this plan, allowing it to add DMs to Threads without having to worry about potentially connecting another DM platform to this integration.
It seems like this has now paved the way for the Threads team to experiment a bit more with their DM options, now that they no longer have to build tools that are compatible with every other Meta messaging platform.
That could lead to some interesting experiments, and it’ll be interesting to see if these games actually make it into production, and how Threads looks to give posts its own unique touches.
#Discussions #Experiments #games #DMs