Twitter Cancels 'Fleets' Just Months After Launch

[MacRumors]

Twitter in November debuted a new ephemeral tweet option called "Fleets," with the feature designed to compete with Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Snapchat, and more.

Fleets apparently did not catch on, because Twitter today announced that Fleets are being discontinued as of August 3, which is less than a year after the feature launched.

Twitter says that it had hoped Fleets would help people "feel more comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter," but there hasn't been an increase of people joining Twitter with Fleets as Twitter expected.

We're evolving what Twitter is, and trying bigger, bolder things to serve the public conversation. A number of these updates, like Fleets, are speculative and won't work out. We'll be rigorous, evaluate what works, and know when to move on and focus elsewhere. If we're not evolving our approach and winding down features every once in a while - we're not taking big enough chances. We'll continue to build new ways to participate in conversations, listening to feedback and changing direction when there may be a better way to serve people using Twitter.

Going forward, Twitter says that it will use what it learned from Fleets to focus on creating other ways for people to "join the conversation" and will find new ways to address "what holds people back from participating on Twitter."

Twitter also plans to test updates to the Tweet composer and camera that will incorporate Fleets features like text formatting, full screen camera for photo taking, and GIF stickers.

Article Link: Twitter Cancels 'Fleets' Just Months After Launch

 

[AngerDanger]

Twitter Cancels 'Fleets' Just Months After Launch

That seems oddly appropriate.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

I see Twitter ending up like Myspace in the future.

 

[nrose101]

I see Twitter ending up like Myspace in the future.

I did at first, but it has exploded in the past four years.

 

[DoogH]

I see Twitter ending up like Myspace in the future.

Maybe? I don't see any evidence of that happening in the immediate future. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, TikTok) are all gaining daily users, not losing them.

 

[HiVolt]

I did at first, but it has exploded in the past four years.

Gee, I wonder who helped?

 

[Cheesehead Dave]

How meta.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Fleets... Instagram stories... Facebook stories... Snapchat stories... All the same garbage.

 

[KaliYoni]

It's sad that heaving bumper sticker sayings at each other online is what's considered "conversation" now. Then again, I've never understood going to a restaurant so that I can ignore the people I'm sitting with either.

 

[Canyda]

I always joked that Fleets were "Secret Twitter". Like, I'd post a fleet and MAYBE four people would look at it, and I have about 800 followers. Whereas my actual Tweets get 20 to 50 times that engagement in terms of views.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Twitter says that it had hoped Fleets would help people "feel more comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter," but there hasn't been an increase of people joining Twitter with Fleets as Twitter expected.

Twitter has 350 million monthly active users. But that number has actually gone down since their high in 2018.

Meanwhile... TikTok has 1.1 billion monthly active users... and Facebook has 2.8 billion (!)

What can Twitter do to grow? Or is this just how it is?

 

[Rudy69]

Is that the stupid thing that had a giant toolbar at the top of the app? Funny enough I never saw any content in it. Sounds like it lasted a few months too long.

That monster should have been put down before it got released to the public

 

[arnoz]

Gee, I wonder who helped?

You can thank me and my 7 followers. Or are you thinking of someone else? 🤔

 

[Canyda]

You can thank me and my 7 followers. Or are you thinking of someone else? 🤔

No one Trumps that.

 

[zorinlynx]

Good riddance. I've never used that feature; it seemed pointless; I'd rather just Tweet. It took up space on the mobile client, and wasn't even accessible at all on desktop, which is where I mostly use Twitter.

A completely utterly useless feature! Be gone.

 

[ghanwani]

They had trouble figuring out how to remove the tweets from the feed while still storing them on their internal servers forever.

 

[applicious84]

I see Twitter ending up like Myspace in the future.

Something I notice is that Twitter and Instagram are the most embedded in articles and stories online--Twitter mostly. I don't see it going down anytime soon. That said, because of how temporary and hidden fleets were, they sort of added little value and didn't contribute to what most people use Twitter for

 

[macduke]

My advice: Stop using every social network. They're bad for you and they're worse for society. Text someone if you want to get in touch.

 

[CarlJ]

Twitter has 350 million monthly active users. But that number has actually gone down since their high in 2018.

Meanwhile... TikTok has 1.1 billion monthly active users... and Facebook has 2.8 billion (!)

A more interesting question is, what percent of those are bots vs real end users.

 

[CarlJ]

My advice: Stop using every social network. They're bad for you and they're worse for society. Text someone if you want to get in touch.

You realize that this forum we're on is a form of social network, right?

 

[Michael Scrip]

My advice: Stop using every social network. They're bad for you and they're worse for society. Text someone if you want to get in touch.

People still text each other. Or Messenger. Or WhatsApp.

And they use social networks for other things.

Wait... do you think people use Twitter as a substitute for texting?

 

[GadgetBen]

People will only use one or two of these 'stories' apps. It's too much even for the average teenager.

This is the time where most people are getting fed up with social media and reducing their usage. Trolls, fake news, fake posts etc.

 

[GadgetBen]

I am a robot. delete

 

[CarlJ]

It took up space on the mobile client, and wasn't even accessible at all on desktop, which is where I mostly use Twitter.

People use Twitter's own app? The one with all the garbage trying to distract you from the timeline? Rather than Tweetbot or Twitterific or other third party clients?

 

[Michael Scrip]

A more interesting question is, what percent of those are bots vs real end users.

Fine... subtract 25% from all of them.

Twitter is still far behind. And that was my point. Twitter doesn't seem able to grow anymore.