Twitter introduces ‘voice tweets’ because sometimes 280 characters aren’t enough

guest · Jun 18, 2020

Twitter introduces ‘voice tweets’ because sometimes 280 characters aren’t enough
June 17, 2020
https://thenextweb.com/twitter/2020...ecause-sometimes-280-characters-arent-enough/

Twitter may have doubled tweet lengths for user rants and quips back in 2017, but sometimes even 280 characters isn’t enough to get your message across. So now Twitter is making it easier to have your voice heard–literally–with the addition of voice tweets.

The feature, exclusive to iOS for now, allows you to affix a voice memo to your tweets much like voice clips in WhatsApp or other messaging services.
But of course, this wouldn’t be Twitter without some arbitrary (if welcome) numerical limitation, so individual voice clips are limited to 140 seconds. That said, if you exceed the limit, Twitter automatically starts a new voice tweet and creates a new thread.

Voice tweets are displayed in your timeline with a large card much like a video tweet, except, you know, there’s no video. The audio doesn’t auto-play; you have to tap on the image to get started.
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You can Tweet a Tweet. But now you can Tweet your voice!
Rolling out today on iOS, you can now record and Tweet with audio. pic.twitter.com/jezRmh1dkD
— Twitter (@Twitter) June 17, 2020
While audio tweets are accessible to users on all platforms, only a small group of iOS users can create them for now. Twitter says it should be available to all iOS users “in the coming weeks,” but there’s no word on when it’ll arrive on other devices.
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Twitter: Your Tweet, your voice

guest · Jun 18, 2020

Twitter’s audio tweets revealed an accessibility blind spot, and now the company wants to fix it
June 18, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21296032/twitter-audio-tweets-accessibility-volunteers

Twitter doesn’t have a team dedicated to accessibility, instead relying on employees who volunteer their time above and beyond their usual duties, and the company may have already realized that’s a mistake — after being criticized for the lack of captions in Twitter’s brand-new audio tweet feature, the company tells The Verge that it’s exploring how to build a “more dedicated group” to focus on accessibility problems.

The lack of a dedicated team was revealed by Twitter software engineer Andrew Hayward, following complaints from accessibility advocates.
A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge that the feature was an early audio test, and “we’re still exploring the best ways to meet the needs of people with different abilities.”
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Following Hayward’s tweets, a Twitter spokesperson tells The Verge the company is working on improving its accessibility review and exploring the possibility of building that “more dedicated group” to focus on the problem.

[...] We missed around voice Tweets, and we are committed to doing better – making this feature more accessible and also all features in the future. We’re constantly reviewing both the functionality of our products and the internal processes that inform them; we’ll share progress in this area.
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Twitter doesn’t seem to be promising any structural changes for certain, but the company has heard advocates loud and clear.
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guest · Sep 23, 2020

Twitter follows up voice tweets by testing voice DMs
The company knows how much you love voicemail
September 23, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-audio-dms-204927308.html

It turns out audio tweets were only the beginning of Twitter's newfound interest in letting users communicate with more than just the written word. On Wednesday, the company told The Verge it’s testing a new feature, starting in Brazil, that will allow users to send voice messages directly to one another.

"We know people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter — both publicly and privately," said Alex Ackerman-Greenberg, product manager for direct messages at Twitter, fittingly, in a 20-second voice message to The Verge's Chris Welch.
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While audio messages are relatively new ground for Twitter, it's a feature you can find in many other apps. Facebook, for instance, allows you to send them in Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
So it’s not a surprise to see the company willing to expirment with the format for DMs.
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