Custom feeds, a new feature that, hopefully counting on the thirst for more personalization in user demand, should enable Threads users to easily build feeds around specific topics or those including certain user profiles, are now rolling out from Meta's Twitter-like app, Instagram Threads, which topped 20 million users as X competitor Bluesky takes off.

This could make it easier for Threads users to tap into the communities and conversations that are most important to them, and may even help challenge Bluesky's own set of tools for personalization- including those that let users build their own algorithms, feeds, and lists-and those that let them configure their moderation tools.

The global rollout of custom feeds on Threads comes just days after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature was in testing. That signals that Threads is moving fast to bleed some of the momentum Bluesky has recently seen. Since the U.S. elections, adoption of Bluesky has skyrocketed as users were looking for an alternative to the now more right-leaning X, owned by Elon Musk. Other decisions at X have also driven people to leave, such as how it has altered the block feature and the policy around training AI models of user data.

Bluesky has thus grown its user base dramatically from about 7 million users a few months ago to north of 20 million.

But Threads maintains its lead over the field of X rivals with more than 275 million monthly users, primarily by virtue of having been able to "bootstrapped" its network by riding on top of Instagram's social graph and integrations into Meta's other applications. But some users in Threads have been disappointed by its decision to deprioritize politics and asked for other options besides the default algorithmic "For You" feed and the chronological "Following" feed.

That’s where custom feeds come in.

To use the feature, you’ll first need to search for and then tap into a topic to see the latest posts. From there, you'll tap on the three-dot icon next to the search term and choose the option create new feed. However, you could also simply choose to add specific user profiles to one of your feeds by going to the user's profile, tapping the three-dot icon above their profile photo, and then tapping to add them to one of your feeds.

The feeds can then be pinned to the top of the Threads' home screen on the web in the columns-based view, which is similar to how TweetDeck or X Pro works in Twitter, and thus make them more accessible.