• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

As Meta's Threads platform adds more users, the decentralized Twitter-like social app is rolling out “Live Chats,” a new way for brands, creators and fans to stoke conversation around relevant real-time events.

To boost competition with X, Live Chats invites users to participate in public group chats during major cultural events.

“It's a new way to build community with others around shared interests like an album drop or a big game as it unfolds,” the company’s announcement reads.

Unlike regular group chats, Live Chats alerts followers when someone is chatting live and features real-time polls, countdowns, live game scores and more to “keep the conversation lively.

Users can send messages, photos, videos, links and emoji reactions with up to 150 Live Chats participants. However, additional users will be able to view and react to the conversation in “spectator” mode after the user limit is reached.

Live Chats is accessible via a user's Community feed, a shared post in their main feed, or through the host's profile photo, which will be highlighted with a red ring.

To showcase the feature's purpose, Threads is launching Live Chats in the NBA Threads community during the Playoffs, with media personalities like Malika Andrews, Rachel Nichols, and Da Kid Gowie hosting Live Chats during live games.

Threads plans to build out the live group chat feature in the coming months, including co-hosting functionality, play-by-play content with real-time updates, lockscreen widgets to surface Chats activity, and the ability to quote and share chat messages on the main Threads feed.