Twitter Launches the 'Spark' Program for Audio Creators on Twitter Spaces

With the extension of its Spaces tab, improved broadcast discovery in the app, and the announcement of a new 'Spark' support campaign to help promote creative audio talent, Twitter appears to be making a new push on its Spaces live audio offering.

The Twitter Spaces Spark Program is a three-month accelerator program that aims to find and reward excellent Spaces on Twitter by providing financial, technical, and marketing assistance. Twitter is looking for up-and-coming creators that are excited about the live social audio format and want to create recurrent content for Spaces. This is similar to Clubhouse's Creator Accelerator program, while TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and others have all launched their Creator Funds.

To put it another way, all of the big platforms are now focusing on providing more support and help to artists to grow their content eco-systems and retain their top talent. Twitter has also announced several creator monetization initiatives for the same reason, with this latest program concentrating primarily on audio producers as it seeks to maximize the value of Spaces and audio broadcasts. Though Twitter must have overlooked the fact that Facebook's AR development platform, Spark, has its funding effort. Or it didn't give a damn. It's most likely the latter.

The chosen participants will receive $2500 a month from Twitter's Spark program, as well as ad credits and custom Spaces swag. They'll be able to communicate with the Spaces development team and have early access to new features, and Twitter may promote their broadcasts using its brand handles.

'Prioritized in-app discoverability for well-performing Spaces' will also be available. That implies Twitter will most likely try to highlight these broadcasts at the top of the Spaces tab, which might help producers grow their following and receive more value out of their efforts.

Applicants who have an established show in social audio on other platforms are also encouraged to apply, according to Twitter's program summary. That makes sense, but it's surprising to see Twitter attempting to recruit strong talent from other platforms (*cough* Clubhouse) as part of its growth strategy. It's too early to tell whether live audio broadcasts will become a more important part of the Twitter experience, or if they were just a fad fueled by the sudden rise of Clubhouse, but they're likely to follow the same path as video live-streaming in terms of becoming less engaging and interesting over time.

Of all, live streaming is still popular and has certain applications, so this isn't the worst-case scenario for audio streaming. However, following the initial hoopla, video streams grew less and less interesting, resulting in the closure of most specialized streaming apps, including Twitter's Periscope, due to a lack of interest. Can Spaces become a more important part of the Twitter ecosystem than Periscope, facilitating additional development potential for the service in a variety of ways?

Spaces appears to have surpassed Clubhouse as the most popular audio social app, while Facebook continues to improve its audio broadcasting tools to keep up with the trend. Which app will emerge victoriously and get the greatest rewards from audio social? Again, you'd have to conclude that Twitter is currently in the lead – but we won't know for a while whether enough Twitter users will remain interested in the long run.

To be considered for Phase 1 of the Twitter Spaces Spark program, you must be based in the United States and have more than 5,000 Twitter followers. You must also commit to hosting at least two Spaces per week — further information can be found here.