Tech Desk 
Jun 18, 2024
Meta has unveiled its much-awaited API for Threads for developers to build custom experiences around it. Additionally, it allows third-party developers to create custom experiences.
Director of Engineering Threads Jesse Chen stated: “People can now publish posts through the API, fetch their content, and leverage our reply management abilities to set reply and quote controls, retrieve replies to their posts, hide, unhide or respond to specific replies.”
Chen said that insights into Threads posts are “one of our top requested features for the API,” so Meta lets developers see the number of views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes on Threads posts through the API.
Meta has posted plenty of documentation about how developers can begin with the Threads API, and there’s even an open-source Threads API sample app on GitHub.
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Moreover, Meta has been checking the Threads API with a smaller number of developers: Grabyo, Hootsuite, Social News Desk, Sprinklr, Sprout Social, and Techmeme. The test integrations have authorised sites like Techmeme to automate uploading to Threads, or Sprout and Hootsuite customers to feed Threads posts into the social media management platform.
People are now waiting to see if developers can simply create a third-party Threads app with the new API that’s not linked to a social media management platform.
However, the existing fediverse beta might help with that, letting Threads users upload through Mastodon clients and share content to Mastodon servers. The current beta of the fediverse integration doesn’t allow users to view replies and follows from the fediverse, which results in the feature will not be completed as an alternative to the third-party Threads app.
