Twitter Makes Spaces Recording Available to All Users

Twitter has announced that all Spaces hosts can now record their talks on both iOS and Android devices, which is great news for Twitter Spaces presenters. This feature adds value to your Spaces content by allowing it to be re-shared to generate greater attention, as well as facilitating broader re-purposing considerations.

To record your Spaces chat, you must first turn on the 'Record Space' toggle in the set-up procedure, as seen in the above sequence. A red 'Rec' sign will appear in the top left of the main Space screen when a chat is being recorded, and the host will be able to stop recording at any moment throughout the session. Your recorded Space will be accessible for public playback on Twitter for 30 days after it is completed, and presenters will be able to download the audio of their Space to edit into a podcast or smaller audio segments to advertise upcoming shows and content.

Clubhouse has risen as an alternative to spontaneous, in-person catch-ups, which have been off the cards due to the pandemic, and the update marks the latest shift for audio social platforms, which originally gained significant appeal, at least in part, due to their ephemeral nature, with Clubhouse rising as an alternative for spontaneous, in-person catch-ups, which have been off the cards due to the pandemic. When recording those talks for re-use, the dynamic alters, but it also offers more capability to the option – albeit hosts must be cautious of their speakers when doing so.

Despite shifting interest in the feature, Twitter continues to promote Spaces as a major growth component as it seeks new methods to expand its audience and increase user interaction. In recent months, the platform has upped its development velocity and pushed out several new features, though many of these have fallen short of expectations and have yet to catch on with users in any significant way.

It'll be fascinating to watch if Twitter's strategy changes under new CEO Parag Agrawal, who took over from Jack Dorsey in November, and if Spaces discovery can be improved or maximized to make the audio platform a bigger priority.

There's still a lot of potential in audio social and real-time engagement in the app, but there are challenges, and if Twitter can't figure out a better way to moderate and highlight the best of Spaces to maximize interest, it may end up going the way of live-streaming, which has a place and a purpose in the broader scope, but is still a supplementary, and all-too-often hidden element.