Twitter
Fleets was Twitter's answer to the popular "disappearing" post feature popularized by Snapchat
"Twitter's purpose is to serve the public conversation - it's where you go to see what's happening and talk about it. But some of you tell us that Tweeting is uncomfortable because it feels so public, so permanent, and like there's so much pressure to rack up Retweets and Likes," Twitter said at the time.
Unfortunately, fleets didn't pick up much traction, with the vast majority of users being already established Twitter users. As the feature hasn't achieved its intended goals, Twitter will be taking it offline on August 3. The company isn't too bothered by the failure of Fleets, seeing it as a learning experience.
"Bets are risky and speculative, so by definition, a number of them won't work. If we're not having to wind down features every once in a while, then it would be a sign that we're not taking big enough swings," Twitter head of consumer products Kayvon Beykpour tweeted.
Twitter has since stated that it intends to analyze Fleets' failure and continue developing new features to address concerns keeping skeptical consumers from joining the platform.
Twitter shares have trended down since Wednesday when the announcement was first made, though this likely has little to do with the failure of Fleets. Twitter stock ended the week 4.4% down.
- https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/twitter-fleets-shutting-down-1235019174/
- https://www.prweek.com/article/1722356/today-gone-tomorrow-twitter-scraps-its-stories-like-ephemeral-feature-fleets
- https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/07/15/that-was-fleeting-twitter-kills-off-ephemeral-messages/
- https://www.pws.io/twitter-fleets-a-snapchat-like-feature-that-stumbled-at-launch