Twitter Spaces Extends Social Audio Feature to Web Browsers
Twitter has made its social audio platform Spaces accessible through web browsers. Participants will no longer need to rely on the iOS and Android Twitter apps, and can join rooms from mobile or desktop browsers, giving Twitter Spaces a new lead on Clubhouse after Twitter’s social audio rival became available on Android earlier this month and garnered more than a million downloads in a week.
starting today, spaces will be available on https://t.co/RD57W4QZPz (mobile web, desktop web)
our focus areas:
– infrastructure and listening UI that adapts to your screen size
– setting reminders for scheduled spaces
– accessibility and transcriptions pic.twitter.com/Wb0DQktkhD— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) May 26, 2021
Web Spaces
Anyone can join a Twitter Spaces room from the regular Twitter website now, although setting one up is not yet possible through a browser. According to the announcement, Spaces on the web is still being tweaked, but the platform has been adjusted to work through the new interface, including adjusting to the size of the screen and sending alerts for any scheduled event a user has asked to be reminded about ahead of time. The additional web presence also includes transcriptions of the conversation and other accessibility options. You can see what the experience looks like right now in the tweet embedded above. The left image is before joining a conversation and the right image has the Space pinned to the side of the screen to let the user continue using regular Twitter.
Twitter Talk
Putting Twitter Spaces on the web continues the development of the social audio platform begun last year by the social media giant. Each update widens the userbase or adds new features. Most recently, Spaces opened the option to host a room to anyone with a minimum of 600 followers. Twitter has already laid out plans to make the rooms more customizable, with multiple co-hosts and ticketed events for shows that Twitter will get a cut of, though the price and number sold will be chosen by the host of the event. All of these plans are clearly aimed at keeping Twitter ahead of Clubhouse and other rivals, even if Twitter Spaces isn’t going for the millions of potential users it could attract as an existing social media platform, another advantage over Clubhouse and startups like Quilt and Swell. Instead, Twitter may be keeping a closer watch on Instagram Live Rooms and Facebook’s other social audio plans. The rapid deployment of new features and options suggests Twitter is not going to be complacent about social audio any time soon.
“Spaces is where live audio conversations happen. And it’s just getting started,” Twitter wrote in a blog post earlier this month on its long-term plans. “We like how it’s shaping up, but there is much more to come.”
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Twitter Spaces Social Audio Rooms Open If You Have More Than 600 Followers
Clubhouse Launches on Android and New Features Arrive in iOS App as Downloads Decline
