Both Twitter and Reddit have taken to following in their competitor’s footsteps by adding new updates this month.
New from Twitter
Twitter, hoping to capture some of Clubhouse’s audience or keep theirs from jumping ship has more or less copied Clubhouse’s concept of audio clips and is currently testing what they call “Spaces Audio Clips.” The new feature allows you to record then share the clip to your Tweet and includes a link back to the full recording. It can be used as a promotional tool to gain interest in your broadcasts and is one more way to create unique content.
Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today drew the apt comparison of Twitter’s Audio Clips to Clubhouse who not only popularized the audio trend during Covid but installed the same exact update in September of last year. He said however, that Twitter with its larger scale and ability to reach a bigger audience will get a pass for being unoriginal because Spaces is more popular than Clubhouse is anyhow. As an interesting sidenote, there is an upside to Clubhouse being smaller.
According to Hutchinson, Clubhouse enjoys more freedom from governments because they escape censorship unlike Twitter.
It’s something to think about when deciding if you want to work with Twitter Spaces or try your hand at Clubhouse. You may not reach the audience you can with Twitter, but you’ll be flying underneath the radar of regulations. That may get you thinking about possible ways to use the app for your business.
To be clear, Clubhouse is growing, albeit in small steps — especially in places like India — so who knows how long they’ll avoid the long arm of suppression, but for now they’re golden.
ever wish you could capture a moment from a Space? great because we’re testing clipping!
certain Hosts on iOS can now clip 30 seconds of audio from recorded Spaces to share, everyone on iOS can see & listen to clips on the Timeline—coming to Android and web real soon pic.twitter.com/DZcV1dzGaz
— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) March 18, 2022
New from Reddit
Meanwhile, Reddit is ratcheting it up a notch by taking a cue from Instagram and adding a Discover feed. It’s the first new section to the Reddit app in over two years and can only be found on the mobile version.
The Discover feature is perfect for folks who don’t want to spend time reading and would rather scroll through endless photos and GIFs to find new subreddits to check out or follow. The idea is modeled closely after Instagram’s Explore Feed with the content/suggestions being personalized for users. The option appears to be a hit with Reddit claiming that one in five users have joined “at least one new community” after using the feature.
According to Reddit, who of course never mentions Instagram as the influence behind the update, users were asking for an easier way to traverse the giant world of Reddit and find new interests.
Jason Costa, Director for Product and Content and Communities at Reddit said: “We’re ushering in a new era of discovery on Reddit, with images and video top of mind. We’re making discovering relevant content and communities more intuitive with the Discover Tab. It’s a great new way for people to explore and engage with hundreds of thousands of communities around the world.”
To access the Discover Tab, you simply hit the compass icon at the bottom of the bar to the right of the Home Tab. You can then search and filter for different topics to follow. They’ve also included a way for users to rate how the new update is working for them – like show me more content, show me less, etc. – so they can continue to improve the feature.
Check out both the Twitter and Reddit update and see what ya think!
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Alyssa Collins hails from Minnesota, where snowy days were the perfect excuse to stay warm inside and write. Over the years, she turned that joy into a career and has authored numerous articles for various publications (under pen names). Email Alyssa via alyssa@ynot.com.
Header image via Pexels.com.
