Twitter once tried its own Stories options, called Fleets, but that didn’t really work out, and now it’s trying something new again – Flocks, which hopefully plays out better for the platform this time around.

So here’s the gist of it – Twitter’s developing a new variable audience control option for Tweets that would enable users to share Tweets to a specific group of chosen contacts, like a community or group, albeit more defined by each user’s personal selection.

Birds Of The Same Feather

Known app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shared a screenshot, with Twitter calling their new option ‘Flock’, essentially enabling users to select their Flock of chosen Twitter followers to be part of a group that they can post specific Tweets to. Flocks currently have a capacity of up to 150 people, making it a rather large group, especially being a private one. When composing Tweets, your Flock then appears as one of the posting options.

Flock members would be notified that your Tweet has only been shared to the Flock via a dedicated marker. This makes it sort of an extension of Twitter’s reply control option, which it launched back in 2020. The option allowed users to decide who could see and reply to their Tweets, leaning more into closed discussions – one of the use cases that further promotes its Communities option. Communities enables users to essentially ‘segment’ their Twitter audience, opening up topic sharing with specific groups, as opposed to the general Twitter public, presenting an opportunity that allows users to engage in a broader range of topics with more relevant audiences.

Flocks would add another layer of perspective, which could open up new potential, further allowing you to sort your audience and discussions into more ‘curated’ groups. Twitter previewed the coming option back in July last year, which was then called ‘Trusted Friends’. One potentially significant element back when Flocks was still Trusted Friends is that their Tweets would appear first on your timeline.

However, say Twitter does prioritize Flock member Tweets, this also presents an equal opportunity for ‘growth hackers’ to take advantage of the new system, essentially adding themselves to as many Flocks lists as possible to maximize their reach.

However, overall, the true value of the option is debatable. What Flocks currently offers, users can get from Twitter DMs. Group chats allow close friends to exchange thoughts and can facilitate possible closely-kept discussions on a less-exposed level than Flocks. Furthermore. Twitter has Lists, which prompt users to stay in touch with their most important connections. When combined, these two Twitter options greatly reduce, if not nearly voiding, the practical use and need for Flocks.

Then again, it could have its uses. For example, if you’re after a more specific engagement, one that builds a sense of exclusivity and intimacy, then having the option to share straight from the composer does sound more viable and convenient.

The Wrap

What we’re getting from this so far is that Twitter is adding more and more options that move Tweets away from the public sphere, which might just a be a good thing, but also marks a potentially life-changing turn for Twitter as these new tools seem to outline a significant shift away from the ‘Public Square’ ethos which Twitter was originally founded upon.

While it’s good that Twitter is coming up with more private conversation options, which some of its users will surely like, it would be wise for Twitter to allocate a major portion of its resources to build on features and functionality that have led to it being a major social platform, which centers more around public discussions. Flock could be a major thing, then again it could be Fleets all over again. For now, we simply have to wait and see.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3qUusiB