Be it self expression, branding, or advertisement, companies don’t even seem to think twice when it comes to “Stories”. But it was not always the case.
We talked about how companies like Facebook and Giphy have flattened the internet culture. Instagram did actually the same by ripping off the Snapchat stories, hence bringing it on to the mainstream. Subsequently, stories blasted off on the internet and other companies took no time adapting the same. Now Twitter follows the suit.
Twitter, on Tuesday, announced an upcoming new feature known as Fleets, a Twitter version of stories, in the Indian market. For the first time in several years, Twitter is launching a new product in India on time. Also, it will be testing Fleets in Brazil and Italy, whilst roll out to other regions including Nepal.
Ciao! Today, Fleets are expanding to Italy! 🇮🇹 Fateci sapere cosa ne pensate twittando con l’hashtag #FleetsFeedback! 🇮🇹🙏 pic.twitter.com/y24qQa3mgj
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 21, 2020
Basically, Twitter Fleets are not private stories while a way to share stuff. And anyone will be able to check a public Twitter profile and dab on to see its, though it won’t pop up in search and moments. Also, you can’t propagate Fleets on the Twitter network and embed them on the third-party websites.
Twitter India tweeted stating, “We’re testing a way for you to think out loud without the Likes, Retweets, or replies, called Fleets! Best part? They disappear after 24 hours.”
Twitter reported a total of around 55 million active Indian users in the past April. Meanwhile, Facebook received more than 350 million active users in the same month. Clearly, India is a primary transpacific market for a bunch of Silicon Valley companies.
Mr. Manish Maheshwari, the Managing Director at Twitter India commented on India being a primary Twitter market saying, “India is important for Twitter since it is one of our largest and fastest-growing audience markets globally. We are excited to bring the Fleets experiment to India and make it one of the first three countries in the world to experience this new product. From the test in India, we’ll learn how adding a new mode of conversation changes the way Indians engage on Twitter. It’ll also be interesting to see if it further amplifies the diversity of usage by allowing people to share what they’re thinking in a way that is light-touch and light-hearted.”
Apart from Twitter, Spotify is allegedly planning out on its own version of “Stories”, while the likes of Skype, Match, and Bumble have already had their hands on the feature.
