Instagram's Twitter/X competitor, Threads, just became a bit more competitive with its rollout of keyword search throughout all markets where the app is available. The tool had been tested in all of the company's English-speaking markets including Australia and New Zealand in August. Most other English and Spanish-speaking countries followed in September, including the U.S. Now, according to head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, keyword search will be "supported in all languages."

This will make the application currently used by nearly 100 million people per month to a significantly greater, international user.

This follows reports that Threads is preparing to launch in the EU. The Wall Street Journal reported that the app is likely to launch in the EU next month and will also introduce a view-only mode where users will be able to view posts without opening an account.

Serving that market would involve offering search capabilities to Europe, where there are many languages. It also would make the Threads app more useful to over 100 countries to which the app is already available, beyond the United States.

Ever since then, the Threads team has been iterating very rapidly on the app, such as introducing a chronological following feed, a web app, an ability to view your likes, polls, GIFs, hashtag support without the hash, and many more features within months of the app's launch. The company also promised a developer API and plans to support ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol that also underlies Mastodon and many other networks.

On the other hand, Trending Topics one of X's central driving features remains absent, at least until now. More interestingly, the algorithmic feed often contains posts days old, suggesting it wants to be a less-real-time version of X. He's also said the company is not trying to amplify news on the app, one reason the app is supposed to be different from the now-deleted X, whose whole focus was breaking news. Still, many who had used X are turning up on Threads, where its direction may be at the mercy of those people.
Today Mosseri writes that more improvements to search are coming soon.

For now, Threads remains to block terms like "long covid" and related phrases in search, directing users to the CDC's website for current information.

As of September, the owner of X, Elon Musk, reports that the monthly active users of the former were almost 550 million. The app Threads has nearly 100 million monthly users and is also yet to come in all markets that are supported by X, limiting its growth potential. But still, the Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, continues to believe in its prospect, claiming recently before the investors that Threads might turn out to be the next billion-person app of Meta in the near future.