This archive report was first published on 3 May 2021.
May 3, 2021, marked a significant development in the world of social media as Twitter began testing its Clubhouse-like 'Spaces' feature on Android.
Alarmed by the growing popularity of invite-only audio-chat app Clubhouse, several tech giants have started to develop its rival. Twitter's 'Spaces' tool, currently available on iOS Beta, allows users to create a 'Space' that their followers can join to participate in a conversation.
According to a report in XDA Developers, some Android users have started to reveal that the Spaces feature is working for them after installing a specific beta version of the Twitter app.
However, the feature is not available for everyone yet and is 'pretty rough around the edges' at the moment. Currently, the feature is available as an early preview for a select few Android users who are part of the app's beta programme.
Twitter's official account said, 'The human voice can bring a layer of connectivity to Twitter through emotion, nuance and empathy often lost in text. We see this with voice Tweets and voice DMs. Sometimes 280 characters are not enough, and the voice gives people another way to join the conversation.'
Twitter is planning to add automated captions to audio and video on the platform this year, a feature that would help people with disabilities access the service in a much meaningful way.
Meanwhile, Clubhouse is currently available on Apple App Store and has been downloaded more than 8 million times. The company is working on an Android version, and Facebook is also working on building its own social audio app like Clubhouse.
