Twitter Launches New 'Fleets' Feature for Posts That Disappear in 24 Hours
November 17 2020 - 8:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Sebastian Herrera
Twitter Inc. is launching a new feature that will allow users to
post text, audio and video that disappears after 24 hours, one of a
number of steps the company is taking to increase engagement and
compete with similar offerings on other platforms.
Called "Fleets," the feature is an attempt to encourage more
users to share "fleeting thoughts" after the company found some
users are at times too intimidated to post and join conversations,
executives said.
"People new to Twitter found Fleets an easier way to share
what's on their minds," Joshua Harris, Twitter's director of
design, said on a call with reporters. The feature has been tested
in India, South Korea, Brazil and Italy and those who had the
ability to use Fleets shared more, the company said in a blog
post.
Twitter is following Snap Inc. and Facebook Inc. allowing
ephemeral posts, which were pioneered on Snap's Snapchat and have
grown popular on various platforms, including on Facebook's
Instagram, which launched its "Stories" feature in 2016. LinkedIn
Corp. also added its own version in September.
A new "share in a Fleet" option will be available for tweets.
After clicking to share, users can add commentary or emojis, for
example, before posting. The Fleets appear at the top of a user's
Twitter timeline. Each Fleet is customizable with various
backgrounds and text options, the company said.
Short-form videos and posts have become popular and competitive
features for user engagement on social media platforms, with
companies funneling billions of dollars a year to online
personalities--known as influencers--who pitch their products on
social media and help keep users engaged.
The rise of TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance
Ltd., accelerated the trend. TikTok's dominance among young users
has threatened to chip away market share from other social media
companies. In August, Instagram launched a short video feature
called Reels in response to TikTok's growth and has made it a more
front-facing part of the app. Instagram also made lucrative offers
to some of TikTok's most popular creators to use its new
service.
Twitter has long been defined by its power users, people who
post frequently on the platform and share their views and
perspectives with a wide audience. Analysts have long encouraged
the company to improve its user base, including by retaining new or
less experienced users.
Twitter found that some users find the prospect of engaging in a
conversation "terrifying," Nikkia Reveillac, Twitter's head of
research, said in the call with reporters. Last month, the
company's shares fell by more than 20% after executives warned of
ad spending uncertainty related to the election and said user
growth was the slowest since 2017. The company added one million
daily users from the previous quarter to end up at 187 million.
Twitter has recently built new tools aimed at improving
retention, including recommending topics to users that are curated
by employees. Twitter is also testing a new product that will allow
users to set up an audio chat room where they can invite
participants. The feature is being tested now with certain
preselected users and is expected to be rolled out to all users
before the end of the year, executives said.
The company has been engulfed in controversy in recent months as
it has taken steps to reduce the amount of hateful and misleading
content on its platform, steps senior executives have said are
contributing to better retention. Twitter critics have seized on
decisions that the company has made to take down or label some
posts as misleading, including about the election.
For a few weeks before election day, Twitter put a limit on user
retweeting. It also initially blocked users from tweeting links to
New York Post articles dealing with allegations against Hunter
Biden--the son of President-elect Joe Biden--before eventually
reversing course.
Chief Executive Jack Dorsey faced sharp questions from
Republican lawmakers last month about the company's attempts to
police content and he is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary
Committee on Tuesday. Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg
is also scheduled to testify, and both are expected to face
questions about how they moderated content during the election.
Georgia Wells contributed to this article.
Write to Sebastian Herrera at Sebastian.Herrera@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 17, 2020 08:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Snap (NYSE:SNAP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Snap (NYSE:SNAP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024