Teknoku.me – Fleets, a new feature in the form of short-duration content uploads which can be videos, photos, text, or tweet posts.
Fleets are placed in a special timeline at the top of the Twitter app display. With this format and placement, it is not wrong if this new feature is called similar to Instagram Stories.
Like Instagram Stories too, according to Twitter, Fleets is intended for uploading content that is lighter and doesn’t need to be too much thought about like a tweet on the main timeline. Fleets content can only be seen for 24 hours before it is automatically deleted.
With its automatic deletion in a day, Twitter says that Fleets can help users upload their personal thoughts, opinions, or feelings in a casual way.
Like it or not
The presence of Fleets seems to have attracted enough attention to the Fleet had perched at the top of Trending Topics on Thursday (19/11/2020).
Of the many conversations that have been circulating, not a few contain pros and cons reactions to Fleets among Twitter citizens. Some like it, some don’t.
Those who disagree with Fleets generally think that they are comfortable with Twitter without the new features added.
Some say that Fleets makes Twitter feel the same as other social media which does implement a lot of similar features.
The concept of a short video that disappeared within 24 hours was originally introduced by Snapchat. His popularity then exploded worldwide after being plagiarized by Instagram in the form of Stories.
There are also users who say that Twitter should focus more on important features such as the ability to tweet or unsend, instead of presenting Fleets that they think are not really necessary.
On the other hand, the number of users who are enthusiastic about Fleets’ presence is also large. They enthusiastically uploaded Fleets’ posts, although they also commented that its features were still not as complete as other platforms.
For example, Fleets does not – or does not yet – have the various GIF filters and stickers that can be found on Instagram Stories, or features like “Close Friends” which only show uploads to certain people in their circle of friends.
Some don’t like Fleets because it makes Twitter similar to other social media, but some others are even grateful for the similarities.
Twitter itself is aware of these pros and cons. In a tweet, Twitter said that, although there were those who reacted negatively, in fact, users still posted a lot of Fleets.
S. Shyam Sundar, Professor of Media Effects from the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, said that resistance to Fleets may be just an initial reaction from Twitter users to changes in the platform used.
“This kind of change arguably reduces the platform’s uniqueness to them, or their identity as Twitter users,” Sundar said.
Over time, it is not impossible that this feature will be preferred and used more. Twitter itself seems to want to expand its audience coverage by presenting Fleets.
This feature has previously been tested on a limited basis in Brazil, Italy, India, and South Korea. From there, Twitter concluded that Fleets helps its users join in on existing conversations,
“With Fleets, we see that people are becoming more talkative on Twitter. New users find Fleets an easier means of sharing thoughts,” wrote Twitter in its official blog post.