‘Twas Only Fleeting: Twitter Ends ‘Fleets’ Feature After Launching Just Last Year

Josh FeldmanJul 14th, 2021, 3:30 pm
 
Twitter Lionel Bonaventure/Getty Images

Twitter Lionel Bonaventure/Getty Images

Twitter is ending its “Fleets” feature less than a year after it was first announced.

If you’re not familiar with what Fleets were, well, then, there’s no point in knowing now, but they were designed for users to share “momentary thoughts” that would only be up for 24 hours, similar to features on other social platforms like Instagram Stories.

At the time Twitter explained in its announcement, “Because they disappear from view after a day, Fleets helped people feel more comfortable sharing personal and casual thoughts, opinions, and feelings. These are early findings from our tests and we’re excited to learn more about how Fleets are used by you.”

Twitter is now ending the feature on August 3rd.

Ilya Brown, Twitter vice president of product, said in Wednesday’s announcement, “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.”

One thing they noticed was that apparently Fleets have been “mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets and talk directly with others.”

Will you miss Fleets? Will you not care? Or did you have no idea Fleets were a thing until you read this post?

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Josh Feldman - Senior Editor

Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac