Twitter's new 'fleets' will disappear after 24 hours
Twitter said Tuesday it was rolling out tweets which disappear after a day, joining rival public platforms in offering ephemeral messages.
The brand new "fleets" which have been tested in several countries lately are "for sharing momentary thoughts" and try to get in users who want to avoid having their comments become everlasting fixtures, according to a Twitter weblog post.
"Those new to Twitter located fleets to be a less strenuous way to talk about what's on the mind," said product supervisor Sam Haveson and design director Joshua Harris in the blog page post.
"Because they disappear from perspective after a evening, fleets helped persons feel more comfortable sharing personal and everyday thoughts, opinions, and thoughts."
The move gives Twitter a fresh tool in competing with famous brands Snapchat, which built disappearing messages popular, and Facebook, which includes also adopted the theory.
Twitter offers become an important platform for politicians, celebrities and journalists, but it features lagged other social networks in users.
During the past quarter it reported 187 million "monetizable" daily active users, trailing Snapchat and Facebook.
Twitter said the new format would allow users to create the equal kinds messages as in standard tweets, including images, video clips and emojis, with the choice to really have the message disappear.
"Your followers can see your fleets near the top of their house timeline," Haveson and Harris said. "Anyone who can easily see your full account can easily see your fleets there as well."
Twitter has been assessment the new format in Brazil, Italy, India and South Korea and learned that "we saw persons with fleets talk considerably more on Twitter."
Twitter's analysis director Nikkia Reveillac said the new format was aimed at helping people move from a good passive to a dynamic role found in the Twitter conversation.
"People must feel safe and in charge" to take part in the discussion, Reveillac told journalists.
"What we learned when we talk to persons is that... participating in conversation can truthfully be incredibly terrifying... And we know that this is true in true to life. And we find out that it's true online."
Harris told journalists the approach is expected to raise engagement at Twitter.
"Lurking and drafting happen to be cool, but also for Twitter to really serve the public conversation, people have to feel safe having conversation with fewer pressure," he said.
"And it might seem to be like we're just a little late to the game on this but we've been thoughtful and exploring the format and how it operates for people on Twitter. And we understood through market test exploration that it makes sense for our platform."
Another different feature rolling out up coming year is the "voice tweet," or sound recording which takes the place of text message and has been tested in the past few months.
"Sometimes, 280 characters merely will not cut it," product custom made Maya Gold Patterson said.
"And in some cases tweeting isn't the correct way of communicating right now. Therefore we were considering exploring how audio may help add yet another layer to the public conversation."
Patterson said that "hearing the empathy, emotion and nuance in someone's voice may help people connect on a good different level" than in a straightforward text tweet.
She noted that voice tweets can also be used by makes to better connect with customers and by journalists to describe their stories.
Source: japantoday.com
