Twitter Proclaims Broader Roll-Out of New Spaces Tab, Provides New Spaces Invite course of

It has been in testing for some time and has been available to select people in the past few weeks. But now Twitter is kicking in broader introduction of the new Spaces tab in the app, which helps improve Spaces detection by highlighting ongoing audio transmissions in the app.

As you can see in this example, the new Spaces tab shows live audio broadcasts whose entries are tailored to your interests based on people and topics you follow on the app (Twitter has also been added Themed tags for Spaces lately). That could get more people tune in, with the ability to check in anytime and see what happens to Spaces on the topics that matter to you.

Although discovery remains difficult. Twitter’s topic matching hasn’t been a huge success so far, and the fact that Spaces is open to almost all users means there are plenty of Spaces shows going on all the time, many of which are likely not of much interest. If Twitter really wants to win with Spaces, it has to make sure that it highlights the best and most relevant Spaces for each user every time they tap the tab – but on the other hand, the tab’s existence is also an important step and will take a different path in the Spaces experience.

What has not existed before. I mean, you can search for ‘filter: spaces’ and get a list of all Spaces broadcasts anytime, but the tab offers a much more controlled, improved detection experience for the option which should get more users to tune in.

Although it also adds another tab at the bottom of the feed function bar, users will now also see the Communities tab, which adds a more direct link (and a little misalignment in this announcement for those who have both).

More tabs probably aren’t really an issue, but Twitter has hesitated in the past to add more function buttons to the bottom bar, and that could be related to usage trends and risks that are creating more clutter in the app.

Overall, though, it seems like a nice addition – while Twitter is looking for something too another Spaces discovery element through DM invitations when you start a space.

It’s too early to say whether Spaces will become a larger element of the Tweet experience, or whether audio social in general will remain a valuable engagement option over time. Much of the initial hype generated by Clubhouse now appears to have subsided, although interest still remains, with Clubhouse recently reporting that it is now home to some 700,000 rooms in the app every day.

It appears to have a place in the broader social media ecosystem, and as such, it could be an important move for Twitter as it tries to maximize engagement with the option.

The new Spaces tab will be introduced for English-speaking users on iOS, while the new DM invitation option will also be available for iOS first, with Android to follow for both.