Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye, Fleets

blog.twitter.com

61–70 of 306 posts

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#61
post #38

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…

> anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting Have they, like, asked people? Also, do they need more people to tweet? It's not like the platform is short of content. Isn't there a role for the comfortable lurker?

I think there's a real concern on Twitter's end with the conversation being dominated by those who are "good with Twitter". That's a big problem because it's kind of a snoozefest to read tweets by a small in-group that you don't know and that won't interact with you. Twitter serves no purpose without interaction.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am careful but Twitter still shows tweets that people I'm following have liked. And they always seem to be the most enraging tweets (presumably with great engagement). Basically I want my Twitter to be a politics-free zone, but I can't help it if some of the people I follow occasionally like political tweets. Also, today it has been sending me a push notification to the same race politics tweet repeatedly even afte…

Yes, I really wish there was a way to turn that off. I personally use Twitter almost exclusively through a 3rd party Android app (Twidere) which just shows me my timeline in chronological order and nothing else. Seems most of the problems with Twitter comes from it not just doing that.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#64
post #38

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…

> anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting Have they, like, asked people? Also, do they need more people to tweet? It's not like the platform is short of content. Isn't there a role for the comfortable lurker?

Yes, they would definitely want more people to Tweet.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#65

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…

Yeah I actually really respect that they axed something within a timely span, posted about their thoughts, and well, lately the Twitter team has been killing it as far as deploying features and long talked about stuff, so it's all good. The idea of Fleets, whether it was inspired by Stories etc, was another way to engage users and it did have some usefulness. I love the 24hr disappearing thing on IG and I liked it similarly here.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, there are a few issues with this strategy: - Your Tweets may be archived on another site anyway - You may delete a Tweet that others hold onto for spite (screenshot, archiver, etc.) and then you don't have the surrounding Tweets to link to in order to show context - If your good Tweets get linked to/embedded from other sources then those links will go bad I've found the only safe strategy with social m…

> I've found the only safe strategy with social media/society is just to be very careful/clear/explicit with what you Tweet in the first place so that it can't be taken out of context. Twitter, as a medium, is anti-context. The UI, the character limit, the behavior of the most prominent voices on the platform, everything encourages you to post hot takes that require as little context as possible to drive engagement.…

> everything encourages you to post hot takes that require as little context as possible to drive engagement.

> Being "careful/clear/explicit about what you Tweet in the first place so that it can't be taken out of context" is equivalent to not Tweeting at all.

No, I don't think it's the same as not Tweeting at all. In my experience it just requires self control (which we all lack sometimes and mess up as I certainly have). I mostly use Twitter to tell my friends and my small number of followers what I'm working on and my opinions on things related to domains I have some education or experience in (software, economics, education, etc.). You can use Twitter for mostly professional and anodyne topics. Saying the constraints of the platform encourage you to post hot takes is like saying the constraints of modern working life encourage you to eat junk food. It's true, but it is by no means forced.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#67

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…

Are you really asking, why Twitter doesn’t allow to edit tweets after publishing them? I think this is a feature, it means you can’t change what you wrote. If this would be possible after you get responses, you could change the meaning of these responses.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#68

If you think people are held back from tweeting by anxiety, how would you ever come to the conclusion that videos are the solution?

Yeah this explanation smells. Reading between the lines, I'd say that twitter fell prey to a couple of bad predictions. The widely-maligned "pivot to video" that ended up being based on FB fudging the numbers for how much engagement video got, and the idea that duplicating the success of IG or TikTok is just about enabling 30 second video snippets.

Inflated FB video numbers have been known for a long while now - references to it in Sep 2016 https://www.facebook.com/business/news/facebook-video-metric...

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply doesn't work. I've tried every tool and trick available and sooner than later the feed becomes filled with drama, politics and random noise. Partly because humans are inherently social and political, partly because Twitter will throw random tweets and topics at you.

I'm on at least my 15th account. Speaking as something with a barely-serviceable love-hate relationship with the service... You have to add people slowly, and be quick to unfollow if you notice a disturbance in the force. Even though I'm keen on programming and related topics, I don't follow a lot of very-popular IT-type folks because of the drama they bring, ESPECIALLY "infosec" Twitter. I've noticed that's a bubble…

Hah - I was hoping I wasn't the only one doing this. In addition to just not being good at "viral twitter", I never have any followers because I nuke-and-pave probably one a year with a new account.

As you called out, most of what I follow is infosec twitter. And the drama ratio is high. I'll follow someone because they do genuinely create a couple excellent technical posts or links, only to find out they are trash and I spend the next month hearing about it.

Re: Goodbye, Fleets

#70

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…

> 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...

That makes sense in retrospect. I have a twitter account but have only used it a handful of times when it was the only way to complain to a company (!). I read tweets only when someone links to them.

Perhaps something even more lightweight would have attracted me but I'd never even heard of this product.

It's a difficult problem to publicize an addition to a service to those non-users who aren't actively looking for features.

Post reply on HN