Twitter Fleets is going away forever next month, and we can all agree on one thing: it didn’t last long. But what Twitter has done here is setting an example for other social media companies that if a feature is not getting good traction, it can be shut altogether.
If you’re on Twitter and often use the micro-blogging platform during the day, then you must have by now seen a big announcement from Twitter or a follow-up reaction to this big announcement. Yes, I’m talking about Fleets, a version of the popular Snapchat and Instagram Stories that Twitter introduced in November last year. And, within a year, Twitter is killing Fleets (RIP Fleets 2020-2021). The news for many was meme-worthy, and I could see some Twitter handles that I follow, almost celebrating the news that Twitter was retiring Fleets on August 3. While I was not a fan of Fleets ever, and I have just posted one Fleet till now for the sake of testing how the reach is and other parameters because that’s part of my work. However, I was impressed by Twitter coming out and admitting that something didn’t work, and it makes no sense to continue keeping it on the service. It is a smart move by Twitter to act quickly on a feature that it spent time and resources on but didn’t work, rather than keeping it around for vanity purposes. And Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other companies need to learn this from Twitter. For people who have been on Twitter for years may not find it too hard to tweet out their thoughts without thinking or predicting what will be the reaction to it. But Twitter, at the time of launching Fleets, stressed that tweeting could be uncomfortable for some people, especially because it’s a public platform, and there’s pressure if someone’s tweet gets no retweets or likes at all. So, Fleets was the company’s attempt to build a low-pressure and ephemeral way to connect to others on the platform.
