Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye, Fleets

blog.twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 306 posts

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#21

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Kudos to Twitter for pulling the plug on a high profile feature that wasn't working out.

I saw some reasonably interesting Fleets at first, but it quickly devolved into a low-effort self promotion feature as they noted:

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets

Eventually I stopped clicking on them because I knew I'd see the Tweets during my normal scrolling anyway. I suppose this problem is inherent to Twitter, where Tweets are already low effort enough that they didn't need another feature for rapid-fire, low-effort content. Contrast with Instagram where people's posts are generally well thought out, but their stories are made for rapid-fire content.

Twitter didn't have the same divergence, so Fleets and Tweets became the same content in different formats. And of course, the Twitter self-promoters took full advantage of a feature that let them bubble their content to the literal top of people's feeds.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#22

Post by p4bl0 »

jdlyga wrote: post #7

Today I learned that there was a feature called Fleets.

Same here, and I still don't really understand what it was. Even though I've been on twitter for almost 14 years.

EDIT: it seems it was some kind of "stories" like they are called on other platforms, the feature was only available within the mobile apps (I've never used the apps I use the mobile website, this explains why I've never heard of fleets before).

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#23

Post by umeshunni »

zarriak wrote: post #12
par wrote: post #4

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets this is exactly my problem with Twitter. It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. As much as I try, I can't seem to escape the oversaturated bubble of a handful of extremely loud mouthed tweeters and their ardent followers. Mix in the t…

You really just need to follow one good Twitter account and they will usually retweet other people who are interesting and usually share a characteristic that led you to followed the original account.

Got it, so build a bigger echo chamber.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#24

Post by okcomputerrrr »

andy_ppp wrote: post #13

Big tech companies especially Twitter and Google have zero longevity when it comes to new products. How about they add subscriptions to Fleets before giving up, I’ve enjoyed a few really great conversations there and it’s a decent product like much of Twitter it just needs some love in terms of features and how they work. For example why on Earth am I not allowed to read someone’s public tweets when blocked. Twitter…

twitter is way better than most social platforms in terms of being open and be able to view the content with out logging in. I think the main purpose of blocking is to prevent you from engaging with the said user / tweet. if you really don't want your tweets to be made public you can make the account private and only allow your followers

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#26

Post by blowski »

thallavajhula wrote: post #5

Twitter is great when it comes to transparency. I love how they included this >Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets and talk directly with others. We’ll explore more ways to address what holds people back from participating on Twitter. And for the people who already are Tweet…

…and I like when people aren’t constantly cynical and critical of everything, so thanks for finding something positive here.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#27

Post by rst »

par wrote: post #4

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets this is exactly my problem with Twitter. It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. As much as I try, I can't seem to escape the oversaturated bubble of a handful of extremely loud mouthed tweeters and their ardent followers. Mix in the t…

You're describing what the algorithm tends to promote -- turning it off (the "latest tweets" feed) may give you a bit more variety.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#28

Post by tills13 »

leviathant wrote: post #17
par wrote: post #4

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets this is exactly my problem with Twitter. It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. As much as I try, I can't seem to escape the oversaturated bubble of a handful of extremely loud mouthed tweeters and their ardent followers. Mix in the t…

Be selective in who you follow, and if you're following someone who shares interesting thoughts but retweets too much, you can turn off their retweets. That in combination with being judicious on the block button makes Twitter one of my favorite social networks.

I agree with you but don't all the actions you mention turn Twitter into an even larger, more strict echo chamber?

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#29

Post by browningstreet »

leviathant wrote: post #17
par wrote: post #4

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets this is exactly my problem with Twitter. It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. As much as I try, I can't seem to escape the oversaturated bubble of a handful of extremely loud mouthed tweeters and their ardent followers. Mix in the t…

Be selective in who you follow, and if you're following someone who shares interesting thoughts but retweets too much, you can turn off their retweets. That in combination with being judicious on the block button makes Twitter one of my favorite social networks.

I add people to Lists and then let some of their tweets get pushed into my timeline. Another way to manage over-tweet-ers. Didn't know about blocking re-tweets though. Off to do that to a few people.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#30

Post by ggreer »

CharlesW wrote: post #9
par wrote: post #4

> Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets this is exactly my problem with Twitter. It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. As much as I try, I can't seem to escape the oversaturated bubble of a handful of extremely loud mouthed tweeters and their ardent followers. Mix in the t…

> It's an even bigger echo chamber than FB. The trick is to block early and often. The feed is what you make it.

I can't block the topics that Twitter constantly recommends.
Post reply on HN