(Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
DeKalb, IL — The short-lived Twitter Fleets feature disappeared from the social media platform last month due to the lack of new user engagement.
Twitter shut down the feature that was implemented for users nine months ago to share text, photos, videos and tweets that disappeared in 24 hours, similar to Snapchat.
The company published two tweets Aug. 3 announcing the end of the feature.
In a blog post on July 13, Ilya Brown, Twitter's head of product said Fleets was built to be "a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts," especially for new users to use the platform.
But, Fleets were mostly used by those who were already tweeting to amplify their own tweets and talk directly with others, Brown said. The goal of the feature was to engage users who don’t like to tweet or who aren’t as concerned about how many retweets or likes their tweets get.
"We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter," Brown said in the blog post. "However, we haven’t seen an increase in the amount of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like (as) we hoped."