Yesterday Twitter surprised everyone with its introduction of voice.

To date the platform has focused on visual mediums (text, images, GIFs, and video) that are easy to scan and consume in most settings. But perhaps now is the time for audio as more consumers adopt AirPods/bluetooth headsets and smart speakers in their home.

Here are some initial impressions from the community:

“#AudioTwitter isn't necessarily for regular users, it's about creating sonic real estate to sell to advertisers. Interactive/voice ads are coming — and Twitter needs more inventory!” – Chris Messina

“For me, Twitter has always been thoughts-first, a place to speak out my thoughts and what better way to do this than voice?” – Darshan Baid

“I do think they could have rolled this out as a DM feature first get people excited about using it frequently then open the experience to feed.” – Brayson

Of course Twitter isn’t the first to make audio social.

• Clubhouse is a more recent (and perhaps the most promising) audio-first social network we’ve seen

• Anchor (v1) started as an asynchronous audio social network that later pivoted to serving podcasters before its Spotify acquisition

• Bumpers launched around the same time as Anchor with a slick UX for recording and editing short audio bits

• Ense is an artsy audio network very few have heard. Use it to share your voice, a melody, or just a sound.

• Zcast was built to host a podcast with your Twitter followers

• Unmute made your “phone conversations” public, similar to Clubhouse

• Dialog decreased the friction to starting a podcast, similar to Talkshow an app built by the Clubhouse team earlier this year

There’s also Currently, Riffr, Lyrc, Koo, Tapebook Pundit, Vooiced, and many others.

Thoughts on Twitter’s expansion to voice? Add it to the thread (sorry, text only... for now). 😁