Twitter has announced it is embracing podcasts within a redesigned Spaces tab rolling out today.
Podcasts have becoming a major battleground for tech companies in recent years, and now Twitter wants in. There’ll be personalised groups with themes for categories like news, music and sports, much like the company’s current Trending topics.
There’ll be live and recorded episodes and the ability to play from within the app. Twitter is promising to integrate some of the most popular podcasts from around the world, based on topics people engage with on Twitter. That synergy does sound like it could work pretty well. If you’re reading tweets about a hot political issue, it might be useful to tune into a podcast from a reputable news source, or expert in the field.
The recommended content can be further curated with thumbs-up to thumbs down buttons to refine what you’re interested in. Right now it feels like a largely personalised experience from Twitter, and so far there’s no information on how content creators can publish their work to the platform.
The feature is rolling out to all English language versions of the app around the world on both iOS and Android. Spaces already existed within Twitter as an alternative to the popular Clubhouse live audio conversation app, so it’ll be interesting to see how this manifests and whether Twitter has success, considering the competition out there.
In a blog post, the company wrote: “Twitter helps people connect with unique and compelling voices around the world. With podcasts, we’re taking that connection to a whole new level.
“We know that some discussions need more than 280 characters, and bringing people closer to the ideas, content, and creators they know and love is core to Twitter no matter where the conversations take place.”
