According to a screenshot released by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, Twitter is working on a podcast tab. The image depicts a microphone icon in the bottom navigation bar of the Twitter app, which appears to connect to a page labeled “Podcasts.”
Image Source – Twitter
The picture gives no indication of how podcasts would be shown on the site or whether it will include Spaces, the network’s audio-only chatrooms. Live Spaces are now crammed at the top of Twitter feeds, and it would make sense to divide them into a different tab.
Twitter initially ventured into audio with the debut of Spaces in 2020, and it delved even deeper into the medium with the acquisition of the social podcast platform Breaker. Spaces have been a long-running experiment for the platform, which recently began enabling anybody to build chatrooms and all mobile users to record talks.
Recorded Spaces are already similar to podcasts, but just ephemeral ones that endure only 30 days. If a Twitter podcast function is anything like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, users will be able to pick and listen to podcasts at their leisure, rather than being rushed to watch a live Spaces broadcast or listen to recordings before time runs out.
Twitter is just the latest social network to potentially establish another arm to support podcasts as they strive to introduce more services to potentially earn more income. Facebook released a podcast service for select producers last year, while Reddit has only recently permitted recording for its audio-only Talks. The Verge reached out to Twitter for comment but did not receive an instant response.
