Twitter Spaces Now Available On Desktop & Via The Web: Getting Started

Twitter Spaces is now available via the web for desktop and mobile users. The curated audio rooms feature is Twitter’s answer to Clubhouse, the breakout app of 2020 that triggered an audio rooms arms race among other social media platforms. Twitter has gone in on the concept with particular gusto, suggesting it sees real potential in it.

Twitter confirmed that it was testing Spaces in December last year, just eight months after Clubhouse launched. It has since caught up with and surpassed Clubhouse in terms of the feature’s development, with the Android version of its app updated to support Spaces before Clubhouse hit Android and new Ticketed Spaces having now been launched before a comparable feature on Clubhouse. The rollout of Spaces to the web is the latest example of this.

Twitter announced the update in a tweet, explaining that Spaces is now available via twitter.com, rather than just on its mobile apps. This is particularly good news for those currently testing Ticketed Spaces as they will only have to pay Twitter’s commission rather than Apple or Google’s as well. Twitter also noted that its focus for the web version of Spaces is now on developing the infrastructure and the interface so that it responds to the screen sizes of users, adding reminders for scheduled Spaces, and adding accessibility and transcription elements.

Getting Started With Twitter Spaces

For the uninitiated, Spaces are ‘rooms’ in which there are one or more speakers and a listening audience. Currently, anyone with 600 followers or more can start a Space and add up to nine other speakers. Anyone on Twitter can be invited to be a speaker, but they don’t need to accept, of course. Anyone can also enter Spaces as a listener, apart from accounts the host has blocked, and the host can mute speakers, change who the speakers are, and accept or reject requests to speak.

Live Spaces currently show up in the Fleets section at the top of a user’s home feed on the mobile apps, but these aren’t present in the web version. To search for Spaces, however, users can use the ‘filter:spaces’ string along with any other keywords that might be relevant – for example, ‘filter:spaces football’. Tapping on a Space will bring up more information about it, as well as a list of current speakers and audience members. Users can then choose to enter or not. Once in a Space, users can minimize the window and continue navigating around Twitter while listening. It’s also possible to view the profile of other users in the Space and to request to speak.

With Twitter having already begun adding to Spaces since it was launched, it can be expected to continue developing it at pace. More tools for discovering Spaces, for example, would be a useful addition, whether through the ‘Explore’ section or a separate landing page. Twitter is now arguably the leader in the audio spaces market and Spaces represents one of a host of new features Twitter has added or is working on as it seeks to expand the functionality and appeal of its platform.

Source: @TwitterSpaces/Twitter