Twitter’s experimental voice messaging feature rolls out in India

Twitter on Wednesday said it is extending voice messages support in Direct Messages (DMs) to India. The feature is still at an experimental stage and will be rolled out in phases to users. India is now the third country after Brazil and Japan to get access to the feature.

Twitter had first announced the voice messages functionality in DMs in September last year. Users can record and send up to 140 seconds long audio messages. Note that the ability to send an audio message is only available on mobile (Android and iOS), however, one can listen to these messages wherever and however they use Twitter.

The interface is quite basic as it features a just play/pause button. Users also have the option to report an audio message to prevent misuse of the feature.

“India is a priority market for Twitter and that is why we’re constantly testing new features and learning from people’s experience on the service here. We’re excited to bring the voice messages in DMs experiment to the country and give people a new way to express themselves and help them connect through the nuances, emotion, and empathy built by hearing someone’s voice,” said Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director, Twitter India.

Voice messages may be new on Twitter, but popular instant messaging applications such as Messenger and WhatsApp have had this for quite some time.

The voice DMs are part of Twitter’s efforts to provide audio-focused services on its platform. Last year, Twitter rolled out voice tweets support for its users. As it implies, users can post audio as tweets. The feature, however, has not rolled out for everyone.

Just recently, Twitter began rolling out Spaces to a select group of users in India. Spaces is quite similar to Clubhouse, an invite-only application that allows users to setup audio-based discussion group. Clubhouse has become quite popular with names like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk making their appearances on the platform.