Twitter announced the closure of Fleets, a feature identical to Facebook and Instagram Stories, in a blog post, Wednesday, July 14, 2021.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/goodbye-fleets
Fleets were created as a “lower-pressure ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts,” according to Ilya Brown, Head of Product, Brand, and Video Ads. Its major goal is to make more individuals feel at ease when participating in conversations.
“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,” Brown said.
“What we don’t build is just as important as what we build. We have to make decisions about what’s working and when to focus elsewhere.” Brown added.
Brown stated that Twitter would continue to test new methods to join in discussions and listen to user input to provide the best service possible to its users.
The feature is more likely to run until August 3, 2021.
“We’re winding down Fleets on August 3. We weren’t seeing the impact we’d like to see from a big bet, so we’re going to pivot our focus elsewhere,” Kayvon Beykpour, Product Lead at Twitter, tweeted.
We’re winding down Fleets on August 3. We weren’t seeing the impact we’d like to see from a big bet, so we’re going to pivot our focus elsewhere ? https://t.co/5aAXh7Y9a3
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 14, 2021
However, Spaces, Twitter’s group audio rooms, will continue to occupy the top of the feed, which was previously occupied by Fleets.
Last November 17, 2020, Twitter launched Fleets.
That thing you didn’t Tweet but wanted to but didn’t but got so close but then were like nah.
We have a place for that now—Fleets!
Rolling out to everyone starting today. pic.twitter.com/auQAHXZMfH
— Twitter (@Twitter) November 17, 2020
Twitter also introduced Fleet Ads last month, one of its first ventures into full-screen, vertical style ads.
Like Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram Stories, fleets enabled users to publish photos, videos, or text that would vanish after 24 hours.
