After rolling out an experimental ‘audio tweet’ feature on iOS back in June, Twitter is now testing voice DMs. On Wednesday, the company’s product manager for direct messages, Alex Ackerman-Greenberg, told The Verge that the feature will offer people yet another way to communicate on the platform. “We know people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter — both publicly and privately”, he said. Interestingly, Greenberg sent the message to The Verge’s Chris Welch through a 20-second voice DM.
As can be seen in the screenshot below, the voice message interface on Twitter will be relatively simple and clutter-free, with only a single ‘Play/Pause’ button. The recipient can also report a message if they find it to be offensive or if they believe that the feature is being misused. According to Welch, the interface will offer an “in-line recording experience to make it easier to send these messages as part of the natural conversation flow”.
It is worth noting here that Twitter is not the first social networking platform to offer voice DMs. Both Facebook and Instagram offer the feature on their respective platforms, but having it on Twitter might be a game-changer for many. Audio DMs will initially start rolling out in Brazil before possibly expanding to other markets. There is, however, no ETA for a global rollout just yet.
Twitter users will be hoping that the new feature will be better executed than the audio tweets functionality which received scathing criticism for its half-baked implementation. In an interview with Protocol, Twitter’ Design chief Dantley Davis accepted that the company was too hasty in rolling out the feature, but promised that things will be different going forward.
