Twitter is killing Fleets

Twitter is killing Fleets less than a year after launching the Stories-like feature to all its users. All Fleets will disappear for the final time on August 3rd.

The short lived feature was at times controversial. Soon after it rolled out to all Twitter users last November, many raised questions about how the feature could be used to target others for harassment. Others questioned whether Twitter really needed a “Stories” feature of its own.

In a blog post, Twitter VP of Product Ilya Brown said the company hadn’t “seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped.” Brown added that Spaces will continue to get placement at the top of users’ timelines and that the company is still analyzing the full-screen ads it started testing in Fleets last month (Twitter hinted at the time that the new ad format could eventually make its way to other places in the service, too).

Both Brown and Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour pointed out that “winding down features every once in awhile” is something the company fully anticipates as it tries to reinvent itself. Twitter has been working on a number of new features that could dramatically change its service – including subscriptions and paid features for creators — and has publicly previewed several new ideas it’s considering in recent months.