Social media giant, Twitter, is set to remove Fleets, its vanishing-post feature.
The San Francisco-based tech platform said it will remove the feature effective August 3, 2021.
It made the announcement via a tweet on Wednesday evening:
Twitter’s reason for shutting down the ephemeral tweet format may not be unconnected to low usage after its launch just eight months ago.
Starting on August 3, users will instead just see active Spaces — Twitter’s live audio chat rooms — at the top of their timelines. And the composer for traditional tweets will be updated with more camera editing features from Fleets, like text-formatting and GIF stickers over photos.
Explaining the probable reason for the decision to discontinue the feature, Twitter’s vice president of product, Ilya Brown, said in a statement quoted by tech news website The Verge, “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.”
Like Instagram Stories, Facebook stories, and Snapchat, Fleets are Twitter posts that are temporary. After 24 hours, your Fleet is gone forever.
Fleets are only postable and visible on Twitter mobile apps. They could be text, gifs, photo or video posts. You can also Fleet your reactions to Tweets. Fleets can be customized with a variety of background colours and text options.
According to social media marketing and management dashboard, HootSuite, in December 2020, early tests in Italy, India, Brazil and South Korea showed that Fleets did encourage more activity, particularly from newer users.
“Because these sorts of posts are explicitly temporary, many found it a more comfortable way to share their thoughts and opinions,” HootSuite had reported.
