As Stories are taking over Snapchat, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, Twitter is the next platform to join the party. The new feature is called “Fleets” which represents its fleeting nature and it’s rolling out now in Brazil for both iOS and Android.
There isn’t much difference between Fleets and the normal “stories” on other platforms because it allows users to post short-lived photos or messages, which will disappear after 24 hours. Unfortunately, there’s no way for users “like” or retweet a Fleet.
However, users can respond to Fleets but the replies are sent as a direct message to the user which is essentially a private conversation. Fleets will be displayed on top of your homepage, which is similar to Stories on Instagram and Facebook.
According to Kayvon Beykpour, the product lead at Twitter, there are people that don’t feel comfortable tweeting because tweets can be seen and they felt permanent. With Fleets, Twitter hopes to address these anxieties which are holding people back from using their platform.
It appears that the Twitterverse isn’t happy with the new feature and #RIPTwitter became trending which is a form of dissatisfaction. A lot of people has something to say about it and it was trending in Malaysia as well.
The idea of Fleets isn’t entirely brand new and personally I feel that Twitter is best kept in its original form. It’s not only a dedicated microblogging platform but also medium for public figures, government agencies and news platforms to share the latest updates in realtime. That’s partly the reason why Twitter still has a huge following.
The addition of a “Stories” feature seems to be unnecessary and I can probably understand why many Twitter users are upset. Perhaps Twitter should be focused on improving its existing features including video playback and allowing users to edit their tweets.
Twitter is rolling out Fleets in Brazil as a test for a few months before deciding to roll out to other markets. What do you think of “Stories” on Twitter? Let me know in the comments below.
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