Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri
announced today that the development of a Instagram Threads API is currently in progress. This move aims to empower developers to create various applications and innovative experiences centered around Threads.
Mosseri’s announcement came in response to a discussion with journalist Casey Newton regarding a potential TweetDeck-like experience for Threads. Mosseri expressed some reservations about the possibility of publishers flooding the platform with content, potentially overshadowing content from individual creators.
“We’re actively working on it. My concern is that it may lead to an influx of publisher content at the expense of creator content, but it still seems like a necessary step forward,” Mosseri commented in a post.
Subsequently, an engineer working on Threads shared that the initial focus for the API development would be on endpoints for publishing content.
It’s important to note that Mosseri has previously addressed the role of news content on Threads, stating that the platform is not “anti-news” but will not actively promote news content. Historically, news publications have relied on third-party tools and integrations with various social networks to automate their content posting, as newer platforms like Threads lacked API availability. This forced publishers to manually upload content, which was far from ideal for organizations posting numerous articles daily.
While Mosseri is cautious about the potential for publishers to flood Threads through Instagram API integration, creators also require diverse tools to share different types of content. Offering an API integration option makes it easier for developers to design features tailored to a specific platform.
In a landscape where social networks like Twitter (now X) and Reddit have made it challenging for third-party developers to create clients, Threads could be a beacon of openness by providing an API, potentially fostering a healthier app ecosystem. While developers have created clients for rival networks like Bluesky and Mastodon, these platforms have smaller user bases compared to Threads.
Recently Meta reported that Threads boasts nearly 100 million monthly active users. While an API and a third-party app ecosystem may not significantly boost this number, they will provide alternative ways for users to engage with the network. Instagram Threads’ development team has introduced numerous features in the months following its launch. However, with a third-party app ecosystem in place, developers can address user demands more effectively.
Meta and Mosseri have explored the possibility of integrating Instagram Threads with the fediverse. Thus, having an open ecosystem with a well-maintained API is a positive step toward achieving that goal.
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