Remember the fleets, those tweets that disappeared after 24 hours? If you don’t know what we’re talking about, don’t worry because it looks like you’re not the only one unaware of its existence.
Twitter announced that, As of August 3, users will no longer be able to create Fleets. This announcement takes place just 8 months after the company announced this feature.
The announcement tweet is quite eye-catching as it ends with “we’re sorry or you’re welcome”.
After the announced date, users will only see active spaces – Live audio chat rooms on Twitter – at the top of their schedules. In addition, the traditional tweet composer will be updated with Fleets editing features such as text formatting and GIF stickers on photos.
Twitter’s decision to suppress Fleets is not just an admission that the feature didn’t work, but that the company has yet to figure out how to get people to tweet more. For years, Twitter has fought for new users to post regularly and not just consume other people’s tweets.
Fleets was an attempt to replicate stories, the popular format invented by Snapchat and made even more popular by Instagram to reduce the pressure around tweets.
“We were hoping that Fleets would help more people feel comfortable ​​participating in the conversation on Twitter” Ilya Brown, Twitter’s vice president of product, said in a statement. “But since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets as we expected.”