Twitter introduced the feature it calls Spaces back in November 2020 in at attempt to get a cut of the Clubhouse pie. Now that the microblogging platform is doing well on the audio side of things, the company is adding another related feature – podcasts.
As announced on its blog, Twitter says that it is adding podcasts into its Spaces Tab. This will offer a selection of popular podcasts, the likes from big media companies in the US, like Vox Media, as the example being highlighted. These will even be sorted by themes or genres like News, Music, and Sports, among others.
As for what Twitter will serve to you in this tab, the company says that it will start with what it already knows about you. Going back to the Vox Media example provided, the company says that if you interact with a lot of Vox content on the platform, then you’ll get more Vox podcasts in the Spaces Tab. You can then further tweak things from there by either the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” rating system, or just listen to more podcasts and Spaces from other companies.
According to The Verge, these new podcasts will be at the top of the Spaces Tab, whereas actual Spaces, be they live or upcoming ones, are pushed further down instead. Which is kind of ironic considering the tab being named Spaces and not Podcasts.
good news, today we’re starting to test a new Spaces Tab
even better news, it includes podcasts, themed audio stations, and (of course) recorded + live Spaces pic.twitter.com/TGS2aVsUI1
— Spaces (@XSpaces) August 25, 2022
On the surface, it really begs the question of is this really something Twitter users want on the platform. This is in addition to the Spaces Tab is putting actual Spaces second to podcasts, making the tab a major misnomer. At any rate, the company says that this new Spaces Tab, which includes podcasts, will be tested by a limited number of English-speaking users around the world, on both Android and iOS.
