For years, Twitter has offered at least some form of live video, but what if you can’t or don’t want to put your face on camera? You no longer have to point followers to some other app else to hear your thoughts—The iOS versions of both the main Twitter app and Periscope now support audio-only live broadcasts, giving you the chance to reel in listeners without having to make yourself presentable or draw attention to your presence. You can track audience stats like you can with video, as well.
When updating Periscope to the latest version, the live streaming video app now allows users to create audio-only broadcasts. The latest version description reads:
“Ever want to just talk with your audience on Periscope? In this update you can go live with audio only, so your viewers can hear (but not see) you. To try out an audio-only broadcast, tap on the new microphone icon on the broadcast setup screen. You can select this option before you start your broadcast, or at any time while you’re live!
In a blog post, Twitter engineer Richard Plom went a bit further into how audio-only broadcasts came to be. According to Plom, Periscope users have long requested the feature and had previously created their own ad hoc workaround by covering the camera lens of the phone when broadcasting. During #HackWeek at Twitter, the development team got together and made this happen in one work week.
“Love to use Bookmarks and want it on web? Into scrolling through Explore to see what’s happening? We are testing out a new Twitter for web, which a small number of people will see today. Love it? Missing something? Reply and tell us. Don’t have the new experience? Stay tuned,” According to the blog post.
The addition of this feature can be seen as an attempt by Twitter to reorient the purpose of its live-streaming platform toward live podcasting and other audio-first content—To use the “audio-only broadcast” option, users need to update their app and go to the “Go Live” button on the compose screen.
The capability to create audio-only live streams will help more businesses tap into this trend, offering more ways for people to tune in, as they won’t have to keep an eye on their device screen to get the full experience—Really, audio-only streaming is live podcasting, and podcasting has been on a gradual rise in popularity, with up to 124 million people or more now listening to podcasts.
This move opens up new opportunities for both creators and audiences – it may not seem like a big deal, but it is worth considering the opportunities that audio-only streams present.The features are currently available only for a small number of users.
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