Twitter is Engaged on a New Podcast Tab to Facilitate Discovery and Engagement

Twitter seems set to make podcasts a a lot greater focus within the app, with a brand new check underway that would offer a devoted tab for podcasts, reachable by way of each within the aspect and decrease operate bars of the app.

As you possibly can see in this screenshot, posted by app researcher Alessando Paluzzi, Twitter is testing a brand new podcasts part within the sidebar.

App researching OG Jane Manchun Wong additionally discovered this example of an much more vital experiment – a podcasts button within the decrease navigation panel.

That implies that Twitter is about to make an enormous leap into podcast discovery, which is able to seemingly allow podcasters to create direct hyperlinks to their podcasts within the app, just like how they’re now capable of create active links to their newsletters, enabled by Twitter’s acquisition of Revue final yr.

For podcasts, Twitter additionally acquired pod discovery app Breaker last year, which, on the time, gave the impression to be meant to enhance the invention of Areas particularly, with the Breaker workforce noting that they’d be integrated into the Areas improvement group.

Possibly, Twitter truly has greater plans in thoughts for a extra particular integration of Breaker’s podcast listening capability, whereas it might additionally tie that into Areas, with recorded Spaces then added as podcasts to hearken to within the new tab.

It’s laborious to say whether or not social audio shall be an everlasting, useful pattern for Twitter to lean into, with the recognition of Clubhouse dying down after its preliminary surge late final yr. However then once more, Clubhouse is still growing in some regions, and possibly, by enabling extra discovery, Twitter will be capable to faucet into those self same tendencies, and make Areas a extra vital consideration to extra customers.

The addition may also seemingly tie into Twitter’s rising creator push, in offering one other manner for creators to construct viewers round their content material within the app. Podcasts, in the intervening time, are a predominantly passive expertise, with the listener tuning in, then transferring on, however a part of the idea of Breaker was to additionally add in social components, like episode feedback and Likes, which might assist to construct engagement and neighborhood, and enhance podcast discovery within the app.

If Twitter can get it proper, it might certainly be an important addition, particularly while you additionally contemplate that podcast listenership has elevated considerably lately.

Based on Edison’s most up-to-date ‘Infinite Dial’ report, 41% of American adults now hearken to a minimum of one podcast every month, up from 32% in 2019, whereas the full US podcast audience is predicted to rise to 164 million monthly by 2021, up from 120 million final yr.

There’s plenty of alternative there, and it’s an space that different social networks should not trying to capitalize on immediately.

Possibly, that presents distinctive alternative for Twitter, and one other potential pathway to development for the app.