Twitter ditches disappearing tweets feature Fleets

Twitter has announced it will remove its disappearing tweets feature Fleets after it failed to attract users and increase overall app participation.

Starting 3 August, Fleets will no longer be available on Twitter.

The removal comes as the social media giant admitted the feature had failed to attract users.

“We built Fleets as a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts,” Head of Product, Brand & Video Ads, Ilya Brown, said in a blog post.

“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.”

we're removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff

we're sorry or you're welcome

— Twitter (@Twitter) July 14, 2021

Launched last year, Fleets let users post short-form videos and pictures that were then displayed in a slideshow format. The feature was similar to Snapchat and Instagram’s Stories.

Going forward, the space at the top of the Twitter app feed will be occupied by Spaces, the company’s new live audio chatroom feature.

Meanwhile, Twitter will focus on looking into what holds users back from joining conversations on the app.

It will also test updates to the Tweet composer to introduce features from the Fleets composer. This includes the full-screen camera, text formatting options, and GIF stickers.

Last month, the company concluded a Fleets ad test where it tested full-screen vertical format ads.

“We’re evolving what Twitter is, and trying bigger, bolder things to serve the public conversation,” Brown explained.

“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.”

Featured image: Unsplash/Jeremy Zero

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