Twitter launches Fleets an Instagram story like feature in India

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking platforms in the world. So popular that the head of states, prime ministers, celebrities, and everything in between are on twitter. If there is a new product that’s going to be launched or a new movie that’s coming out it is announced on Twitter first. Today most people use twitter to get their news, weather updates, and all other information as well. People have used Twitter to makes their voices and opinions heard by using hashtags and even starting movements using the giant. Now for the first time, the social media giant is launching a new feature for the Indian market called fleets. Fleets is a feature that’s similar to the Instagram story mode or as Twitter puts it “one that is ephemeral and disappears after 24 hours”. Fleets are not private stories. Instead, Twitter’s way of allowing users to share something that cannot be communicated via a simple tweet, and the main feature is that Fleets disappear after 24 hours of being uploaded so they won’t appear in the user’s timeline. 

https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1270358114072592387?s=20

Fleets will appear as stories do on Instagram with a blue colored bubble on the account that has uploaded one. Users can tap on the blue-colored circle and see what has been uploaded on the fleet. To see more fleets uploaded by the user you will have to swipe up instead of tapping on the right as you do on Instagram. Swiping on either left or right will open the fleet of another user. 

Namaste! Starting today, Fleets are coming to India. If you’re in India, check it out and let us know what you think! #FleetsFeedback 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/U6QiHynm1U

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) June 9, 2020

To upload a Fleet tap on your profile bubble as one does on Instagram and you will see a box that says “Share a fleeting thought” in which users will be able to share text up to 280 characters or photos that are clicked by the camera roll option and GIFs or videos that are 2 minutes and 20 seconds long. Fleets will support the usual Twitter hashtag, links, and tagging. 

Twitter bringing Fleet feature to India is a welcome move by the social media giant. For too long Twitter has been criticized for its treatment of the South Asian market. It seems that it is changing now. India has the second-largest number of Internet users in the world and has around 55 million users on Twitter. “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,” said Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director at Twitter India, in a statement.

The Fleet feature makes Twitter the last major platform to embrace the story feature that Snapchat introduced to the world. Today Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and youtube have a feature that lets users share stories on the platform.