Ditch your phone, Twitter Spaces is now on your desktop

Twitter announced today that it’s bringing Spaces — its live audio product — to the web. This could mean that I can finally put my phone aside to listen to some interesting conversations or live music.

Real-time audio apps have birthed a plethora of new content formats to consume. One of those is “listening to this while working.” This could be a room where someone is playing music, your friends are talking, or people are just silent to enjoy each others’ “company.”

I’ve been in plenty of such Clubhouse rooms, but after moments, I eventually pick up my phone to either check Twitter (doomscrolling ftw!) or refresh my inbox to see if I’ve missed any emails. The idea with these kinds of rooms is that you can put your phone down for a while and do something else — but it works rarely for me.

Twitter said that Spaces will be available on both mobile and desktop web. The company is also making sure that these Spaces are properly scaled for both interfaces.

starting today, spaces will be available on https://t.co/RD57W4QZPz (mobile web, desktop web)

our focus areas:
– infrastructure and listening UI that adapts to your screen size
– setting reminders for scheduled spaces
– accessibility and transcriptions pic.twitter.com/Wb0DQktkhD

— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) May 26, 2021

Plus, Twitter’s introducing live transcriptions and reminders for scheduled spaces on the web.

On its mobile apps, Twitter places Spaces atop your timeline where Fleets (Twitter’s Stories product) show up. The experience isn’t as smooth on the desktop yet. In particular, improving discovery should be a priority.

For now, you’ll have to rely on finding links to live audio conversations that interest you. Currently, the best way to do this is to paste “https://twitter.com/i/spaces/” into the site’s search bar. Yep, this sucks, but hopefully, Twitter will improve it soon.

Twitter’s announcement comes days after Clubhouse launched its Android app worldwide. While live audio is still largely on mobile apps, Twitter’s new cross-platform product may tempt people to try it out while working on their laptops. While Twitter Spaces on desktop has a long way to go, I’m just happy I can finally tune in to interesting audio while avoiding doomscrolling on my phone.