Meta Releases Threads API For Developers To Build 'Unique Integrations'

Meta has released the Threads API for developers to build "unique integrations" into the text-based conversation app. The move could potentially result in third-party apps. The Verge reports: "People can now publish posts via the API, fetch their own content, and leverage our reply management capabilities to set reply and quote controls, retrieve replies to their posts, hide, unhide or respond to specific replies," explains Jesse Chen, director of engineering at Threads.

Chen says that insights into Threads posts are "one of our top requested features for the API," so Meta is allowing developers to see the number of views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes on Threads posts through the API. Meta has published plenty of documentation about how developers can get started with the Threads API, and there's even an open-source Threads API sample app on GitHub.

Great name

[Viol8]

Lets have an API with the same name as some basic programming functionality, no possibility for confusion there. What next, Files API?

Threads

[Kunedog]

I drew a different association:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[_merlin]

No-one does nuclear war films like the British.

So they can Sherlock other...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

...developers' ideas without paying them anything. That's what social media APIs are for, right? Sherlocking was made famous by Apple & that's how it got it's name: https://www.npr.org/2024/06/17... [npr.org]

Re: So they can Sherlock other...

[larwe]

Well yes, this could go exactly like Twitter's API ... People build an economy of better apps on top of it, then it gets yanked.

Re:So they can Sherlock other...

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Facebook already did that to their earlier developer community for the current site. Everything taken for granted today such as posting videos, pictures, and well, pretty much everything was first done by third party developers when FB was new but growing fast. Over time they not only integrated developer ideas and banned developers from duplicating any features they stole from 3rd party devs, once they got big enough, they made it impossible for 3rd party dev to exist at all.

As an early third party dev I got to see how FB works behind the curtain and regularly dealt with FB staff, policies, etc. You think FB is evil and has no concern for privacy, the users, etc? You have no idea. It's far worse than that. I don't use any of the big social media companies after seeing them without the mask.

They will do the same thing again. You don't need to look at Apple. FB is an experienced master of this technique.

Re:

[zlives]

nono this time they will totally be nice :)

Re:

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Lol, yes, I'm sure they learned their lesson when they grew dim 50m to billions of users, in part by robbing 3rd party devs. :-)

Still a thing

[stealth_finger]

Is threads still a thing?

Re:

[echo123]

Is threads still a thing?

Threads is/(are) still a thing.

Re:

[_xeno_]

It certainly still exists, but from what I understand from people who bother with this kind of thing, no one is really using it. There are impressive numbers of "daily active users," except Facebook - sorry, "Meta" - boosts that user number by showing "Threads" in Instagram. For real user engagement, X (formerly Twitter) still beats it.

By far the most dominant social media platform these days is TikTok. The others aren't even close.

I can help

[CEC-P]

Do you think I should write an API that helps users get off that failed trash site that all the banned fringe liberal extremists fled to once Twitter started policing their bullshit or would that be too on the head? I hate to kick a company while they're down but then again, no I don't, because it's Facebook/Meta.

Interoperability

[Errol backfiring]

Does the API allows you to migrate to other services like Mastodon?