Threads adds new features to live chats as they expand reach

Meta’s Threads adds new capabilities to what was recently launched Live chat feature With the expansion of access to more users, the company announced on Tuesday. Updates include support for translations, new tools for chat hosts, and more.

With support for translations, conversations in chats become more accessible to users around the world. Threads is also expanding the ability to start live conversations to all “community champions,” which the company describes as users who have a high following within their communities, post regularly in those communities, and keep conversations active.

Hosts can now also invite up to three co-hosts to their live chat to make it easier to manage conversations. Threads says this new capability is equivalent to having a guest on your show or another voice moderate the conversation. Additionally, hosts can now delete messages for everyone, and the platform is testing ways to make host messages appear more clearly in chats.

When Threads first launched, it struggled to compete with X as a destination for real-time conversations because it lacked basic features like powerful search, hashtags, and a chronological feed. Since then, Threads has added these capabilities and now differentiates itself further with live chats, a feature designed for real-time engagement that even X doesn’t have.

The idea behind live chats is to help make topics feel more relevant and timely. Since launching the feature, Threads says it has seen hundreds of chats hosted almost daily with thousands of users joining. Threads says the features added today are in response to what creators are asking for.

Using live chat, users can send messages, photos, videos, links, and emoji reactions. Up to 150 participants can actively send messages in the chat. Once this limit is reached, additional users can still view the conversation, respond to messages, and participate in polls in Spectator mode.

Today’s threads also mentioned that desktop support is coming soon and pinned messages are in the works, both of which have been highly requested by creators.

Earlier this month, Topics has reached 500 million monthly active usersnearly three years after its launch as a competitor to X. Threads has introduced many new features over the past year, such as Direct messages, Ghost postsand Desktop messagesTo help drive platform growth.