Some thoughts on Twitter Spaces

Twitter Spaces is Twitter’s new feature to try and slay Clubhouse before it gets too big that it’s a fully-fledged social network, rather than a venture capitalist’s punt.

The best thing about Twitter Spaces versus Clubhouse is the closed captions. Thankfully Twitter learnt from the voice Tweets fiasco.

We tried our first one at the end of Services Week to reflect on the sessions and the week in general. Some of our phones were getting overheated but generally we had a nice conversation out in the open.

We quickly learnt that it’s harder to figure out when to speak, when other people are done speaking, how to ‘platform’ people so they can speak. Lots of glitches but we got through it.

We also learnt:

• you should say “I’m finished speaking” at the end of your point
• you can pin tweets to the Space
• your phone can get really hot

Since then, Twitter has made a few small changes and I’ve got access. It’s in early beta right now.

At the cross-government Services Week working group, we wanted to experiment with audio-only formats and see if people bought in.

There was a very successful podcast/audio-only experience launched during Services Week and we knew some people were interested in Twitter Spaces.

It’s always good to try new communication channels.

I decided to run a Twitter Space at short notice last Friday. I aimed it at government people, spamming Slack and Twitter but I think it was too short notice.

A couple of mates joined and some of their followers saw the big shiny space button at the top of their Twitter feed so came in. Thank you to the person with the explicit photo for joining 😬.

I learnt that you need to:

• Have an agenda
• Have some people to talk about the subject
• Advertise the Space well
• Set expectations about what the Space is about

What I’m not yet sure about is the right day or time to run a space.

Especially in government with back-to-back meetings and tbh, let’s chill out at the end of the day. I dread looking at Twitter on Sunday because us designers just don’t switch off.

Last week was the Drag Race UK final and someone on Twitter started a space to discuss it. I joined but I felt like I was third-wheeling their friendship group. I could get some thoughts in but I felt like an outsider.

Also, people talked over each other, so you definitely need to work out what your housekeeping rules are.

Drag Race UK had a Twitter Space with some queens from Season 2. It was a bit chaotic — people couldn’t become a speaker, people speaking over each other and some poor person having to orchestrate it as the host. Eek.

Laurence from The Design Researchers on Twitter got in touch about me hosting a Twitter Space as they wanted to try it to discuss journey mapping. I agreed and we got to work.

Ahead of the Twitter Space, we:

• Got some marketing tweets out
• Asked everyone who wanted to join the Space to reply, so we could send them a link to the space
• Posted the housekeeping rules and agenda

We had a DM so I could sort anything I needed to — e.g. randomers who get speaking permissions but want to advertise their website (yes, it happened!).

We had a good discussion and it was pretty well attended. People dropped in and out, a fair few people stayed for the ride.

I learnt:

• It takes about 5–10 mins for everyone to get into the chat
• It’s easier to reply-spam the Spaces link to everyone in the “I’m interested” thread than to consolidate into one message
• You need one person to do the facilitating/hosting of the Space — it’s a full-time thing to do
• We really, really need the ability to schedule a Space and have pre-settings so it’s not such a panic to sort out when you start the Space
• If we cannot schedule a Space, we need to set up a bitly link or something and tell people to click the link after a certain time
• It’s still buggy when someone becomes a speaker/listener
• It would be good for a way to raise a hand so you can keep track of people who still want to speak

I think the worst thing is that you cannot schedule Spaces with interested people getting a notification to join.

Also, people need to get used to the features. Most Spaces I’ve been to involves people fumbling through it, learning how to use it. That makes some Spaces really messy.

I think it would benefit by being able to get people interested in it beforehand. You can’t just drum up a crowd by yourself. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the advertising industy.

Let’s see how the feature progresses and which Spaces I host or attend next.

PS. This is a bit chaotic and I feel like I might do more blogs like this in future. A brain dump.