Surprise? Or maybe not. It turns out that Twitter has decided to embrace in the style of the famous Instagram Stories and has announced a new feature, within its same social network, that will allow you to tweet with this style. This is how Fleets works .
Instagram Stories
The “Stories” have become the star format of social networks. Commonly named in honor of Instagram – the first social network to popularize this type of content with that name – other platforms such as Facebook or WhatsApp have also encouraged over time to offer a similar solution in their environments, seeing the public’s great acceptance .
If you live in a bunker and do not know what we are talking about, it is a type of format that allows users to share content with their contacts with an expired time, which generally does not exceed 24 hours . Once this period is over, the images disappear forever – unless you have saved them as it happens on Instagram, so that they are displayed whenever you want. The essence is therefore simple and effective: publications that disappear without a trace after a few hours online.
Although at first people were a little reluctant to use this concept and did not see much sense, over time the Stories became a real phenomenon and rare is the person active in social networks who does not use this way to communicate with their followers, taking advantage of the freshness and immediacy they offer.
Twitter Fleets: this is how they work
Now it seems that the idea will also make the leap to Twitter. As explained today by Kayvon Beykpour, product director of the platform (and co-founder of Periscope, by the way), in his account, the firm has taken note of all the valuations of its users, among which there have always been many complaints about the durability of tweets .
Beykpour points out that although Twitter is a space where you come in to see “what is happening”, it has also become a place to find opinions and share personal thoughts . Many people, however, do not feel comfortable with this activity precisely because of the fact that tweets are something that remain forever in a user’s history – unless you put them out one by one, of course.
People often tell us that they don’t feel comfortable Tweeting because Tweets can be seen and replied to by anybody, feel permanent and performative (how many Likes & Retweets will this get !?). Many of us can probably empathize with this: https://t.co/LW2xWlctZi
– Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) March 4, 2020
The developers have taken this situation into account and therefore created Fleets. At the moment the function can only be tested in Brazil, where they have started testing both on Android and iOS. The “fleets” last only 24 hours , after which they disappear forever from the face of the internet. They cannot be retweeted , nor receive “likes” or public responses.
People who follow you can only react to these “ephemeral tweets” by DMs (direct messages), which can be displayed at the top of the app by tapping on a user’s profile picture (as on Instagram, go).
I know what you’re thinking: “THIS SOUNDS A LOT LIKE STORIES!”. Yes, there are many similarities with the Stories format that will feel familiar to people. There are also a few intentional differences to make the experience more focused on sharing and seeing people’s thoughts. pic.twitter.com/OaGYZpChcN
– Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) March 4, 2020
As Beykpour acknowledges in the tweet you have on these lines, Fleets looks a lot like Stories and they don’t hide it. In fact, he assures that these similarities will make people familiar and easier to use. Even so, it ensures that there are a few “intentional differences” to focus the experience on sharing thoughts with other people.
