Twitter announced last month that it would soon introduce an option that allows hosts to record their live audio sessions in Twitter Spaces to make them available for replay. While the company at the time said the feature would launch in “a few months,” it’s no surprise that, given Twitter’s accelerated pace of development, the company is rolling out its first iteration of the feature from today.
Initially, the option to save spaces will be made available to a limited number of Twitter Spaces hosts on iOS and all listeners on iOS and Android globally. Twitter says the first users to receive access will be those who were in the original beta of Spaces. It will then roll out the feature to the rest of the Twitter audience in a few more weeks, the company said.
To use the feature, a Spaces host will create their live audio room by giving their space a title and selecting up to three tags to describe the topic of the room, as usual. They can then activate the new “Recording Space†setting before pressing the “Start Space†button to begin their live audio session.
If they are in a Twitter space during recording, participants will see a “Rec†button with a red dot next to the top of the space to indicate that the recording is in progress.
Image credits: Twitter
When the host is ready to end the space, they hit the “End” button at the top right as they would otherwise, and a pop-up asks them to confirm they want to end. both Space and stop recording.
Once packaged, the space recording can be shared on the Twitter platform, allowing listeners to read it anytime or share it themselves. Twitter doesn’t have an audio export option available yet, we’re told. Instead, users should request a download of their data to directly access the recordings.
Live audio has grown in popularity as the COVID-19 pandemic has increased, as it has provided something for locked-down users to do when stuck at home. But the call waned somewhat as COVID restrictions were lifted and people began to venture out again. The popular Clubhouse live audio app, for example, saw the number of app installs decline earlier this year, but rebound again with an Android version. However, the app also faced delayed engagement in some emerging markets, like India, and struggled with its creation schedule.
Image credits: Twitter
Recently, Clubhouse expanded its feature set to offer options that would enable asynchronous listening, including support for clips, reruns and audio exports – tools that bring the app closer to a creative platform. podcast, rather than a simple live audio network. (It’s actually a miracle that Apple didn’t reclaim it to become an internal rival to Spotify’s Anchor.)
Other competitors to Twitter Spaces, including Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms and new startups like Fireside and Callin, also support audio recordings.
With much of the live audio landscape now incorporating recordings, Twitter has had to catch up.
The release follows shortly after a few more updates from Twitter Spaces, including yesterday’s launch a Spaces test which brings the Spaces tab dedicated to Android users and an update to make DM invitations easier. Twitter also now goes have popular spaces in the Explore / Trends tab on iOS to increase their visibility.
