If you were patiently waiting for another place to share comments and pictures that are only available for a short time, you got good news on Wednesday: Twitter is now testing out “Fleets,” its own version of 24 hour “Stories” featured on Snapchat, Instagram and several other apps.
Twitter’s test is starting off in Brazil. Users will be able to post text, pictures, videos and GIFs that — in typical Stories fashion — will only be available to see for one day. After that, they go away. Followers will not be able to retweet, like or post public comments to a user’s Fleet, but they can respond via direct message, if DMs are open.
“We want to make it possible for you to have conversations on the platform in new ways, with less pressure and more control,” Twitter product manager Mo Al Adham said on the company’s blog. “Fleets are for you to share your ideas and momentary opinions.”
1/ Introducing Twitter Fleets! Now live in Brazil.
THREAD 🧵 pic.twitter.com/iGiCtRded4
— Abdellatif (@Abdella6if) March 4, 2020
For Twitter’s users in Brazil, they’ll see a circular profile picture at the top of their feed that is highlighted when one of the people they follow shares a new Fleet — making it nearly identical to Instagram Stories.
Twitter, which recently passed the 150 million daily user threshold, joins the ephemeral messaging movement first made popular by Snapchat, the app that first made Stories popular. Years later, Instagram launched its own copycat version, and Stories have since been adopted by Facebook, its parent company; WhatsApp has its own version of Stories as well. Instagram, as of January 2019, had 500 million daily Stories users.
The test comes as activist investor Elliott Management is pushing for Twitter to replace CEO Jack Dorsey, with one complaint being the company has failed to innovate at the same rate as its Silicon Valley peers.