On November 10, Twitter announced that it is expanding its Stories-like Fleets to another region. Currently, this option is being expanded to users in Japan, and it is the next stage of the broader roll-out of the Fleets option. The social media platform has already explained that Fleets are not precisely like Stories. The company introduced this feature in March of this year and explained that while there several similarities with the Stories format, this option also has some intentional differences to make the experience more focused on sharing and seeing users’ thoughts.
The company has previously rolled out this feature to users in Brazil, Italy, India, and South Korea. However, it is worth noting that it has been a while since we have had any update from Twitter on the expansion of this feature. In late June, the social media platform last announced on the expansion of this tool, when Twitter made Fleets available in South Korea. In May of this year, the company introduced Fleets to users in Italy. However, with all the extra work going on around the 2020 United States Presidential election, it seems that the company might have put the Fleets option on the back-burner for a bit.
For Twitter, Japan is one of the most markets since it has 51 million monthly active users in this country. This makes Japan second-most important market for Twitter after the United States in terms of total users. This indicates that the company is really putting the new option to the test this time around, in a much larger market which has more users as compared to the current countries where Fleets are available. This could also mean that the company is close to the full launch of this feature.
It is yet hard to say how popular Fleets will become before it is rolled out to all users across the globe. Here, it is worth noting that Twitter claims that the option has seen good response thus far. Moreover, Twitter is also experimenting with new tools such as collaborative Fleets. Since the new feature is a copy of Stories on Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, etc., some people will indeed be critical of Fleets. However, Stories have become a habitual option which people align with, so it makes sense for all social media platforms to provide such tools.
The company has previously rolled out this feature to users in Brazil, Italy, India, and South Korea. However, it is worth noting that it has been a while since we have had any update from Twitter on the expansion of this feature. In late June, the social media platform last announced on the expansion of this tool, when Twitter made Fleets available in South Korea. In May of this year, the company introduced Fleets to users in Italy. However, with all the extra work going on around the 2020 United States Presidential election, it seems that the company might have put the Fleets option on the back-burner for a bit.
For Twitter, Japan is one of the most markets since it has 51 million monthly active users in this country. This makes Japan second-most important market for Twitter after the United States in terms of total users. This indicates that the company is really putting the new option to the test this time around, in a much larger market which has more users as compared to the current countries where Fleets are available. This could also mean that the company is close to the full launch of this feature.
It is yet hard to say how popular Fleets will become before it is rolled out to all users across the globe. Here, it is worth noting that Twitter claims that the option has seen good response thus far. Moreover, Twitter is also experimenting with new tools such as collaborative Fleets. Since the new feature is a copy of Stories on Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, etc., some people will indeed be critical of Fleets. However, Stories have become a habitual option which people align with, so it makes sense for all social media platforms to provide such tools.
