Why Twitter Fleets Were Discontinued The social media landscape is constantly changing with new features being introduced, and old features being retired constantly. Sometimes though, a new feature doesn’t quite do what the platform developers intended. Maybe it doesn’t work properly, or perhaps it just doesn’t have the outcome they were expecting. When that’s the case, it’s removed to make way for newer and better. This is exactly what happened with Twitter Fleets. That’s right, after just 10 short months, Twitter Fleets have been discontinued. The Short Life of Twitter Fleets When the production team over at Twitter designed Twitter Fleets, they were hoping to increase the number of new people joining Twitter. Fleets were highlighted at the top of the screen and were similar to Instagram Stories and Snapchat in that posts disappeared in 24-hours. Ilya Brown, VP of Consumer Product said in a Twitter blog post from July 14th that, "We built Fleets as a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts." Snapchat has been building loyal followers since it debuted in July of 2011, and Instagram Stories became a thriving feature for users of the platform in August of 2016, allowing them to share images and videos with their audience which disappear within 24 hours. The idea that Twitter users might enjoy the same low-pressure posting seemed reasonable enough. The main goal for the feature was to attract more users, Brown said, "Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties...