Twitter announced that integrates the podcast catalog into Spaces, its live audio feature for real-time conversations. The tab will be redesigned with new features in the iOS and Android apps. It will reach all users in stages, starting with Anglo-Saxon speakers.
In Spaces, you can see a selection of live programs or already created content, categorized by topic: news, sports, music, movies, etc. The algorithm will be responsible for selecting content specifically for each user.. For example, if he follows journalists covering the conflict in Ukraine, he will be shown live conversations on this topic or programs related to it.
“Research we’ve done in-house shows that almost half of the people who use Twitter in the US listen to at least one podcast a month, so we want our users to be able to find new podcasts on Twitter that they might be interested in.” interest”.
Why podcasts are integrated into Twitter
Twitter’s strategy is to add podcasts to increase the time each user spends in the app and therefore for you to see more sponsored tweets and ads, which is the main source of income for the company. This works very well for Spotify and has created a new source of income that is more profitable than playing music.
But one that covers a lot, compresses little. Twitter has already toyed with the idea that users would write articles directly on the platform. This idea, which makes sense because the only way to write without character limits is through threads or links to articles, has been largely ignored since its inception. The same goes for Spaces, a nice feature that has received a lot of attention in the interface but has been abandoned and not updated until now.
The ability to record live conversations that occur in Spaces and then listen to and catalog them could make the feature more popular. There are usually interesting and spontaneous conversations about value. D this helps many users to dare to express their ideas without resorting to the previous investment of money and time to publish a podcast..
What do you need to compete with the benchmarks in the sector?
Even more confusing is the ability to listen to podcasts hosted on other platforms on Twitter. Most users already use Apple Podcasts, especially in North America, or Spotify. But it could be an offer to help the user’s followers learn more about the content creator outside of the platform.
For Twitter to even compete with Spotify, Apple Podcast, or any other podcast playback app, it must offer a number of features that the user already considers basic; how to download episodes for listening offline.
However, Twitter has a big advantage: you can link a real-time conversation to specific content. A user who listens to a podcast they like goes to Twitter to share their experience. So why not listen to it on Twitter while reading other users’ comments on the episode? The possibilities are many, but if we look at the history of recent Twitter changes, most likely another unnecessary function.
Source: Hiper Textual
