Twitter had started testing its own version of the over saturated ‘Stories’ like feature, back in March and dubbed it ‘Fleets’. The feature has become pretty standard across all social media apps, and up until now, Twitter was certainly lacking. However, now the feature has been announced for India as well, making it one of the first three countries in the world to receive it (unless you were using it on the other million apps that it is available on, in which case you are good).
The announcement was first made by Kayvon Beykpour, product lead @twitter. He said, “Namaste! Starting today, Fleets are coming to India. If you’re in India, check it out and let us know what you think! #FleetsFeedback“
Then, the announcement was confirmed by Twitter India’s own account, which tweeted, “Testing, testing… We’re testing a way for you to think out loud without the Likes, Retweets, or replies, called Fleets! Best part? They disappear after 24 hours.”
Fleets are just that, fleeting thoughts, which fleet for about 24 hours. Quite a long interval for “fleeting thoughts” but it is what it is. The duration is in line with apps that offer similar features like Instagram and Snapchat.
However, there is a difference. As Twitter is more public than its competitors, so are fleets. Stories posted on twitter aren’t exactly private, and can be viewed by anyone who visits your profile. However, fleets won’t appear in Search or Moments, and neither can they be embedded on a third party platform. This makes them less public than tweets, but public nonetheless.
These fleets will not be able to receive any likes or retweets, in a bid to enable a sense of privacy on the public platform. For the time they are up, fleets can be viewed from the top of your feed. However, they can be replied to, by sending a direct message to the person who posted them.
Twitter said that “This is a phased roll-out,” meaning that it may take some days before you can access Fleets on your device. But they should be available to everyone soon enough, as the company said that “Fleets will be available for everyone in India on Twitter for iOS and Android in the coming days in updated app versions.”
