ISSUE: Twitter to test “voice tweets”
By: William Sikkens
Host, User Friendly 2.0 Saturday’s at 5:00 p.m.
With use of social media waning, providers are constantly trying to add new services. Social media in general stopped being happy places a long time ago. Twitter is no exception.
To try and drive traffic the major social media sites have been rolling out and testing new features. The latest is Twitter’s “voice tweets”.
Not everyone will be selected to try out this functionality, and it will be limited to Apple iPhone to begin with.
The function will allow you to record a tweet up to 140 seconds of audio.
DIG DEEPER:
Changes to the way technology works, for good or bad, is a part of modern day applications. There are constantly updates to everything from our phones to our computers. While it is nice to be able to keep things up to date, it can become overwhelming. There is no coordinated approach between companies to this update process which allows different things to update at different times. Sometimes incompatibilities arise from these updates.
With the new Twitter app the only platform that will be supporting voice tweets initially will be Apple. When the update is ready, and if you are selected, your app will update. This will not be connected to a coming update for the iOS operating system.
The initial design allows you to exceed the 140 second limit by creating a thread of tweets if you go over time. This will be handled automatically by the app. You will be able to play back a voice tweet from a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. This will allow you to continue to browse Twitter while listening to the tweet.
Voice tweets will go through the regular timeline, and users will tap the image to listen. It is unknown when, or if, this feature will be available for other phones such as Android.
William (Bill) Sikkens has been an on-air technology expert since 2014. With an expertise in I.T., cyber security and software design he has had more than 20 years’ experience with advanced technology. Sikkens conceptualizes and designs custom applications for many professional industries from health care to banking and has the ability to explain the details in a way all can understand. Article edited by Gretchen Winkler, who along with Jeremy Winkler are the co-hosts of User Friendly 2.0 here on The Answer Saturday’s at 5:00 p.m.
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Got a technology question or comment for Bill? Follow him on Twitter @sikkensw
