Twitter ramps up roll out of 'Spaces' to take on Clubhouse

• Twitter Spaces is an audio-only service that is currently available to a limited set of users on iOS.
  
• As Clubhouse continues to grow in popularity, Twitter is ramping up the roll out of Spaces to more users.
  
• Moderation is one of the core areas of focus of Twitter Spaces, with features like blocking, reporting and controlling who can speak.
  

Twitter is ramping up the roll out of its new feature called Spaces as it tries to take on Clubhouse which has exploded in popularity over the last few weeks.

Twitter Spaces brings audio chat rooms to users. Currently in limited beta testing, the service is powered by Periscope. It was first announced in November with limited rollout in December. Now, the company is expanding availability to 3,000 new users.

Twitter is prioritising women and people from marginalised communities as it seeks to address issues of abuse and harassment on open platforms. Simply put, users can control who can speak in Spaces. Twitter has added the ability to report and block users, posturing that the company is taking the issues of abuse and harassment seriously. An issue over which it has received a lot of flak recently.

At the moment, Twitter Spaces feature seems to work only on mobile apps and It is limited only to iOS, which leaves out the large number of people who use Android. But the company has noted it is working on the Android version as well, which will be available once a large roll out occurs.

Clubhouse’s popularity could revive Periscope

Twitter Spaces is powered by Periscope, and the breakout success of Clubhouse could end up reviving the service.

Twitter had announced that it will be shutting down Periscope by the end of March this year as the service was in “unsustainable maintenance-mode state”.

If Twitter Spaces takes off, it could help the company repurpose Periscope.

Clubhouse attracts the who’s who of tech industry

One of the biggest draws of Clubhouse is the surprise drop-ins from people like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or even Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Its invite-only system also seems to have helped it retain quality of conversations. It has boomed not only in the Silicon Valley, but also in Japan and China. However, China ended up banning it as the app side-stepped censorship laws.

Clubhouse’s popularity has caught the attention of billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban as well, who said he is involved in a competing app co-founded by former Googler Falon Fatemi.

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