Twitter Stops Pretending Spaces Aren’t Podcasts

Twitter has redesigned its app to emphasize Spaces—the audio chat rooms it released in 2020 to compete with Clubhouse—and complement them with traditional podcasts.

“This redesign introduces personalized hubs that group audio content together by specific themes like News, Music, Sports, and more,” the company says(Opens in a new window). “Now Twitter listeners will be able to easily access a more personalized selection of live and recorded Spaces discussing the topics that are most relevant to them.”

(Credit: Twitter)

Twitter says that Spaces will now include “the most popular and engaging podcasts from around the world.” The company’s screenshots of the redesigned app depict podcasts from publishers like NPR, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and Vox Media being presented alongside a live Space hosted by NASA.

This seems like the natural evolution of Spaces. Twitter launched Spaces with support for live conversations, then made it so everyone could record a Space in January, and then added the ability for Spaces hosts to create 30-second clips in March. Spaces had essentially become podcasts that were recorded live.

It also seems like pretty much any company that has anything to do with audio is keen on the podcast market. Spotify has made podcasts central to its music streaming platform, YouTube recently added a dedicated podcasts hub to its video streaming platform, and now Twitter is bringing podcasts to its social platform.

Twitter says “the reimagined Spaces Tab, including the addition of podcasts, will be visible to a group of global English-speaking audience on iOS and Android” starting today.