Social networks are still betting big on audio

EVER since the success of Clubhouse during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Twitter has been hitching its wagon to the audio trend. More than a year after launching Spaces, its audio lounges, the network of the little blue bird is now rolling out the tool for the Communities option, which allows users to select a portion of their followers as a private circle.

Users will be able to start audio discussions within their own Community. For now, the new feature will only be available to certain Spaces administrators and moderators.

Note that all Twitter users can join and attend a Space created from a group in “Communities,” as Twitter pointed out. But only members of the group will be able to interact in Space.

Twitter isn’t letting up on its strategy to make a name for itself in the audio scene. With the rise of podcasts, the platform intends to take advantage of this trend. At a time when media outlets are boosting their audio content offer, and fictional audio series are taking off, Twitter is now looking at the possibility of creating podcasts from a Space.

By making the Space option available at the Communities level, the social network obviously wants to encourage users to use this tool. To boost its profile, Twitter even created a special tab to help users find and join audio rooms more easily.

For now, the social network has not revealed the figures for the use of these formats — Spaces and the Communities tab. However, audio represents a real axis for social networks. The time that a user spends in an audio room means that time isn’t spent on other networks.

And Twitter’s not the only platform surfing on the audio trend. Reddit, more known for its “subreddit” forums than for audio, started offering audio chat as early as February 2022 with Reddit Talk.

NST