It Looks Like Twitter’s Latest Features Aren’t Quite Taking Off
In the last few months, Twitter has really upped its game with its roll-out of new, what should have been exciting features.
We’ve seen ‘Fleets‘ (tweets lasting for a brief period of 24 hours), ‘Twitter Blue‘ (a subscription service), ‘Super Follows‘ (another subscription-type feature), ‘Spaces‘ (one of many audio-chat functions now on the scene) and, Twitter’s latest addition of interest-focused groups, ‘Communities‘.
An accelerated development velocity, however, does not always equate to success and, unfortunately for Twitter, this might have been exemplified. Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour praised the efforts of his team, highlighting their improved internal culture and refreshed strategic vision. But have these experiments gained traction? Were they really worth it in the long run?
The most obvious fail was ‘Fleets’ – a copy of Snapchat’s signature vanishing-post format, now most recognisable on Instagram’s ‘Stories’. Having failed to catch on the way the company had hoped, a mere eight months post-launch they were axed from the service.
[Image Creds: Variety]
Evidence suggests that Twitter’s other recent experiments aren’t doing particularly well either. Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Twitter’s ‘Super Follows’ subscriber offering only generated approximately $6000 in its first two weeks. Then you have ‘Twitter Blue’, which is still a work in progress, and ‘Spaces’, which is up against a host of competitor audio-chat apps, made particularly threatening as audio-streaming goes steadily into decline.
Definitive data on the performance of Twitter’s ‘Communities’ is not yet accessible, but Twitter’s recent track record with features doesn’t fill us with promise. It will be interesting to see if the social media giant has a breakthrough with these (currently) invite-only, interest-focused groups.
The reality is, continuously giving up on new features – as Twitter did with ‘Fleets’ – will eventually reflect badly on the company’s internal development processes. Should Twitter continue to ramp up its feature roll-out rate, or take more time and care to fine-tune each one before they launch?
Finally, for our previous #SocialShort, click here.
