Since countless people spend their days on social media, popular platforms like Instagram and Twitter are constantly looking to innovate their apps and improve the user experience. As a result, there have been updates like Twitter’s infamous — and racially biased — crop feature as well as Instagram’s polarizing decision to allow users to hide like counts. Naturally, every new social media feature isn’t going to be immediately met with open arms, but some horrible updates have actually caused a social media platform to go back to the drawing board entirely.
Now, in one of the most noticeable social media flubs in recent memory, Twitter has ironically decided to make its “Fleet” feature disappear in an astounding eight months after its launch in 2020. According to The Verge, the disappearing tweet format is shutting down due to low usage starting on August 3.
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Instead of “Fleets,” the blatant ripoff of Instagram’s story feature that HNHH once predicted could be a massive success, Twitter’s new “Spaces” feature will now occupy the top section of the Twitter timeline. According to The Verge, Twitter also sees the failure of the “Fleet” feature as a failure to welcome more users onto the social media platform altogether.
Ilya Brown, Twitter’s vice president of product, spoke on the decision to end “Fleets” in a statement, saying, “We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter. 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.”
“If we’re not evolving our approach and winding down features every once in a while – we’re not taking big enough chances,” Brown continued. “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.”
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However, the beloved social media platform doesn’t appear to feel too defeated by the setback. Twitter’s official Twitter account even joked about the mixed reception of the feature in a tweet that confirmed that “Fleets” were a done deal, saying, “we’re removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff…we’re sorry or you’re welcome.”
Are you sad to see “Fleets” disappear so soon? And do you think that Twitter’s Clubhouse-esque “Spaces” feature is any better?
[via]