Twitter stops Fleets disappearing after 24 hours due to low usage figures

Twitter is shutting down Fleets. The clone of Instagrams Stories was introduced last year, but was hardly used. As a result, not enough new active users came to the platform. Twitter will focus more on live audio instead of Fleets.

On August 3, the plug will be pulled out of Fleets, Twitter writes in a blog post. From that moment on, the ‘fleets’ are no longer visible in the apps. Fleets were disappearing tweets that usually contained images that became unviewable after 24 hours. They could be seen at the top of the timeline in the apps of the social medium, similar to how Instagram and now many other apps offer stories.

Twitter acknowledges that Fleets was little used. The network hoped that new users in particular would become more active by using Twitter in a different way, but that did not happen. Twitter has struggled for years with its growth, mainly because new users mainly read tweets but make few of them themselves. Instead, fleets were used by existing and already active users. The position has existed since November last year.

Twitter says it has learned a lot from the temporary experiment. For example, most Fleets users would share photos or videos in their fleets. “We will soon start testing the tweet creation button to include features from Fleets, such as a full-screen camera, text formatting options and GIF stickers.” The place of fleets within the onion, namely at the top of the timeline, also remains a good place for more content. That is where Spaces will be located in the future, the live audio feature that it has been experimenting with for some time.