Gone but already forgotten Twitter axes Snapchat-like fleets after they fail to get less active users to tweet
Twitter is discontinuing âfleetsâ, the disappearing-tweet function it debuted in November to a sea of eyerolls, seeming surprised that the feature hadnât become popular despite imitating already-existing competitors.
Fleets allowed mobile Twitter users to post pictures, videos, audio, and text in a separate media feed from their normal timeline and see them disappear in 24 hours. Now the feature itself has been given an expiration date, the platform announced on Friday, saying the less-than-popular novelty will be officially discontinued on August 3.
we're removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuffwe're sorry or you're welcome
â" Twitter (@Twitter) July 14, 2021In a not-exactly-shocking postmortem, Twitter explained that while it âbuilt Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting,â the feature was âmostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets and talk directly with others.â
That is, a new kind of tweet was used mostly by people who already sent a lot of tweets. It took eight months to figure this out, apparently.
Going back to the drawing board, Twitter promised to look into other ways to deal with those aforementioned tweet-anxieties, skirting the issue of people worried about being âcancelledâ because of old tweets dug up and thrown in the public eye. Instead, it announced it was âtrying bigger, bolder things to serve the public conversationâ â" including a âFleet ads testâ that introduced full-screen vertical ads.
Also on rt.com Still no edit button? Twitter underwhelms with new âFleetsâ feature, is accused of âcopyingâ InstagramItâs not clear if this kind of screen-hogging ad â" or protection from it â" is tied in with âTwitter Blue,â the subscription-only Twitter tier that allows users to pay extra for new features (including a coveted âundo tweetâ option), or if it will be retired along with the rest of the Fleet-related content. The service has so far been launched only in Canada and Australia.
Twitter users reliably showed up to deluge the Fleetâs death announcement with their own opinions, many reprising the eternal demand for an edit button.
Edit button please
â" Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) July 14, 2021Twitter actually replied to one request calling for a âdislikeâ button â" potentially opening up a whole new market, especially with YouTube threatening to delete its own dislike button and Facebook forever refusing to adopt one of its own.
Thanks for the suggestion. We'll make sure to show this to the team.
â" Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 14, 2021A few Fleet fans â" and sarcastic impersonators thereof â" showed up to see off their beloved feature.
Damn I actually found them useful.
â" Jeff "Swift" Saxton (@JeffSaxtonVlogs) July 14, 2021The 5 people who used fleets must be really disappointed
â" Sagar (@sagarcasm) July 14, 2021Several users demanded Twitter copy other features from competing platforms â" such as Instagramâs âpronouns featureâ and more ways to âdeal with threats and harassmentâ and kicking others off the platform.
Remove the trolls and racists instead of working on gimmicks ð'ð»
â" Paul O Keefe (@pokeefe1) July 14, 2021Others simply reminded Twitter of how derivative rolling out something like Fleets had been in the first place.
Next time, you could call it "Stories", launch it everywhere at once and have it at the top of everyone's feeds. That's how Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok did it. Even then, it probably wouldn't work since tweets are already fleets.
â" Jenna Grip (@JennaGrip) July 14, 2021...which where copied from Snapchat as well. Of course, IG capitalized it with user base and marketing, and at that playfield Twitter arrived years late. They should had known better not to venture there.
â" DarÃo MartÃnez Batlle (@dariomartinezb) July 14, 2021Like this story? Share it with a friend!
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