Twitter has announced that it is ending its disappearing tweets feature – Fleets from 3rd August.
The company said the feature was built as a “lower-pressure, ephemeral way” for people to share their fleeting thoughts.
However, since its launch in November 2020, the platform hasn’t seen an increase in the number of new people Tweeting and joining the conversation with Fleets as the company had hoped.
This has led to the firm discontinuing the feature from next month onwards.
Using its learning from Fleets, Twitter said it will focus on creating other ways for people to join the conversation and talk about what’s happening in their world. The social networking site has revealed some of its learnings and plans as below:
Although Twitter built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets and talk directly with others. The platform is exploring more ways to address what holds people back from participating in the conversation. And for the people who already are Tweeting, the focus is on enhancing their experience.
Most Fleets include media – people enjoy quickly sharing photos and videos to add to the discussion on Twitter. Soon, the platform will begin testing updates to the Tweet composer and camera to incorporate features from the Fleets composer – like the full-screen camera, text formatting options, and GIF stickers.
The top of the timeline continues to be a good spot to highlight what’s happening right now. People will still see Spaces there when their followers are hosting or speaking in a live audio conversation.
Twitter’s Fleet ads test, which concluded as planned last month, was one of its first explorations of full-screen, vertical format ads. A close look at learnings is being taken to assess how these ads perform on Twitter.
According to the company, even though it is “evolving what it is, and trying bigger, bolder things like Fleets, to serve the public conversation”, many such updates like Fleets are “speculative and may not work out”.
Twitter said going forward, it will be continue “to be rigorous, evaluate what works and know when to focus elsewhere”, as it is doing with fleets.
