The leading social media platform Twitter has announced that it is ending its Fleets feature, which launched last November; the service was designed to take on things like Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and more.
It would appear that Fleets did not become very popular as it was canceled less than a year after it launched. Talking when Fleets found, these were the features that tried to attract users.
Fleet Highlights
- Fleet is designed for mobile use on Android and iOS apps.
- Fleets appear as circles in a row below the menu icon and above your timeline.
- They don’t get retweets and aren’t ready for a public solution.
- They can receive a heart or a thumb.
- Fleet can consist of text, video, GIF, stickers, or images.
- People can send messages or reply to your Fleet by tapping on the emoji icon below your Fleet.
- If you have an open DM, anyone can answer to your Fleet. If you have DM turned off, only people you follow can reply to your Fleet.
- You can choose to turn DMS off or on for any fleet you post.
- People who have access to Fleet can view your Fleet in two ways:
- If they follow you, your Fleet will appear in the new bar at the top of their home timeline.
- Anyone who can view your Twitter feed can tap your profile picture to view your Fleets from your profile.
- If you protect your Twitter, your Fleet will be safe too.
- To delete the Fleet, select Delete Fleet, and it will delete the post.
- You can do this by pressing the Fleet icon of the person you want to migrate to the Fleet bar and selecting Fleet or Fleet and Mute Tweets.
Twitter’s microblogging platform announced Fleet retirement in a tweet from its official handle. The feature displayed a line of full-screen Tweets at the top of a user’s timeline that would disappear 24 hours after creation. Starting August 3, Twitterati will just see active Spaces at the top of their timelines. The buttons will let them join ongoing real-time discussions as listeners.
We built Fleet as a lower-pressure, short-term way for people to share their fleet ideas. In addition, we hoped Fleets would help people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter. Unfortunately, although we introduced Fleets on Twitter to everyone since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we have not seen a boost in the number of new people signing up for the conversation with Fleets as we hoped. Because of this, on August 3, Fleets will no longer be available on Twitter.
Twitter added Fleets eight months ago. The feature was initially based on Stories introduced by Snapchat in 2013, later emulated by LinkedIn and Facebook-owned platforms. However, the tweet format was not widely adopted and used by the platform community. As a result, it eventually closed in favor of Twitter’s thriving clubhouse me-too, called Spaces.
The Winding Up Fleet makes Twitter the first social media giant to drop the concept of Stories. However, Twitter remained optimistic until last month when it introduced ads from select brands as an “experiment” among tweets. The platform did not specify whether full-screen ads would continue to appear elsewhere in the app after the end of the Fleet.
Twitter is rolling out new additions and enhancements to its platform to stay relevant to users – especially those who use new and trending features on other social media. These include recently introduced Clubhouse-like live audio chat rooms known as Spaces and its new Blue Twitter Premium membership that offers unique features unavailable to regular users.
“If we don’t develop our approach and shut down facilities from time to time — we’re not taking a big chance,” Brown said. “We will continue to create new ways to engage in conversation, hear feedback, and change direction when there is a more prominent way to serve the people who use Twitter.”
Fleet’s retirement is also surprising, as the platform recently began testing full-screen ads on Fleets — again, taking a cue from its competitors’ Stories feature. Twitter notes that ad content is an experiment, with several brands contributing ad images or video clips that appear for 30 seconds between posts. Though the company is not confirmed, there is a chance that it may move these full-screen pop-ups to other parts of the platform in the future.
Short-lived and much less popular than expected, it is improbable that Twitter’s user base will miss fleets. As seen in his retirement announcement, even the social media giant seemed dissatisfied with the feature itself. As a result, the Fleet will disappear from the platform on August 3 this year.