Twitter will eliminate the Fleets, its big flop

Twitter will eliminate the Fleets

The feature will disappear from the platform on August 3, having failed to engage users enough

(photo: Twitter) The Fleets experiment has officially failed. In fact, Twitter has announced in the past few hours that its version of Instagram stories will no longer be available for users of the platform starting from August 3.

The microblogging social network had launched its disappearing stories only nine months ago, but chose to do without it due to the low usage of the feature. However, the company has made it known that it will work on new products, without specifying what they are and whether they are in the same vein as the Fleets.

At the time of the launch of this feature last year, Twitter was , in fact one of the few social media that had yet to introduce a story format. Now, at the top of the app, only the horizontal strip of Spaces will appear, the audio rooms on the Clubhouse model, another of the latest news on the social network.

we're removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff

we're sorry or you're welcome

- Twitter (@Twitter) July 14, 2021 | back of Twitter shows how the social network continues to try to optimize its product to make it accessible in a more mainstream way to a wider user base. But it also talks about how it struggles to increase engagement.

The Fleets were born precisely for this reason: to give users who tweeted little due to the format of the tweets the opportunity to express themselves with stories that would later be disappeared.

The new function had started well anyway. The Fleets crashed as they became available for the first time around the world, due to the large number of people who were trying them.

Over the months, however, the news has passed and the involvement has waned. The users who used them the most were the same who were already tweeting and interacting on the platform and not the "silent" ones.

"We hoped that Fleets would help more people to feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter", Twitter's vice president of product Ilya Brown said in a statement. "But, since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven't seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets as we hoped."

The decision was sudden enough, but Brown explained the philosophy guiding Twitter at the moment: "If we don't evolve our approach and shut down features from time to time, we're not taking big enough risks."


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Twitter Pulls The Plug On Fleets Feature After Less Than A Year

Topline

After only eight months of being available for all users, Twitter said Wednesday it will remove Fleets, the platform’s answer to Snapchat and Instagram’s wildly popular stories, saying the feature hadn’t proved popular with users.

Twitter will disable its Fleets feature next month.

AFP via Getty ImagesKey Facts

Fleets, which allows users to post full-screen messages that expire after 24 hours, will become defunct on August 3, Twitter said.

While Fleets was designed to address the “anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting,” most users who posted Fleets were already active and the new feature didn’t make way for “new people joining the conversation … like we hoped,” Twitter product head Ilya Brown said in a blog post Wednesday.

The company announced the change Wednesday afternoon, saying in a tweet, “we're removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff. we're sorry or you're welcome.”

Fleets icons take up prime real estate at the top of users’ timelines, and will be replaced next month by links to active Spaces, Twitter’s audio chat rooms.

Crucial Quote

“If we’re not evolving our approach and winding down features every once in a while — we’re not taking big enough chances,” Brown wrote Wednesday. “We’ll continue to build new ways to participate in conversations, listening to feedback and changing direction when there may be a better way to serve people using Twitter.”

Key Background

Twitter launched Fleets in November after testing the feature for select users in India, Brazil, Italy, and South Korea. “Those new to Twitter found Fleets to be an easier way to share what's on their mind. Because they disappear from view after a day, Fleets helped people feel more comfortable sharing personal and casual thoughts, opinions, and feelings,” the company said in a blog post at the time. While the format didn’t prove successful for Twitter, the expiring messages have been a hit for Instagram and Snapchat. 

Further Reading 

Twitter Has Stories Now And They’re Called ‘Fleets’ (Forbes)