Twitter tests its short-lived content feature ‘Fleets’ in India

Social media platform Twitter is all ready to roll out ‘Fleets’ in India, a new feature to allow users to share text, photos, and videos that only last for 24 hours.

After Brazil and Italy, India is the third market where Twitter is introducing this feature to test. In the new feature, posts will pop up in a separate timeline above the main timeline for 24 hours before disappearing. Fleets can neither be liked, replied or retweeted and look akin to the story feature of Snapchat, Facebook’s apps ecosystem, and YouTube.

This is a phased roll-out, Fleets will be available for everyone in India on Twitter for iOS and Android in the coming days in updated app versions.

Importantly, the latest feature will address one of the major challenges of privacy users face while using the app. There are various instances in which users have shown hesitation to tweet as they are public. Fleet would bring some fresh flavor to attract new users who have been shying away on the pretext of privacy. The feature may bring youngsters on the microblogging platform as well.

The launch is coming at a time when Twitter has been witnessing a spike in its daily active users or DAUs in India. Lockdown has triggered usages of social media apps as most of the people across are confined fearing the spread of Covid-19. Twitter saw a 30% rise in daily active users in February and March in India.

Twitter also led$100 million in vernacular-focused local social networking Platform ShareChat in August 2019. The investment was driven by the motivation to strengthen strategic stakes in local social media space. 

During FY19, the microblogging platform had also recorded a decent business in India with an over 31% increase in revenue to Rs 56.9 crore in the year from Rs 43.4 crore in the previous fiscal. Its net profit also saw a two-fold spike to Rs 5.8 crore in FY19.