It was only a few months ago (November, to be exact) when Twitter introduced “Fleets” as a new feature to the platform. And today, the company announced that they will be removing them by August 3, 2021.
For those who never played with the feature, Fleets were displayed at the top of the timeline, and would open fullscreen-style Tweets that would expire after 24 hours. So… “Stories” but on Twitter.
Personally, I kinda liked Fleets, but I didn’t like them enough to actually use them. Which is probably why Twitter is deciding to shut them down.
The way Twitter announced that they are ending / removing the Fleets feature is super refreshing, though, not gonna lie. They simply admitted that it didn’t work and have some other stuff in the works that they’re going to focus on. I respect that!
“We built Fleets as a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts. We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter. But, in the time since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped. Because of this, on August 3, Fleets will no longer be available on Twitter.”
– Ilya Brown, Head of Product, Brand & Video Ads for Twitter
Here’s a whole thread that Twitter Support gave us to explain why they are giving up on the feature:
Come August 3rd, instead of seeing Fleets at the top of your timeline, users will begin to see active Spaces displayed.
GG.
