Twitter to soon begin testing voice DMs

New Delhi: Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that will let users record and send voice messages via Direct Messages (DMs) to friends and family members on the platform. Alex Ackerman-Greenberg who is product manager for DMs at Twitter, said the company is going to test voice DMs soon, The Verge reported on Thursday. Brazil will be the first country for the voice DMs test.

“We know people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter both publicly and privately,” the Twitter executive was quoted as saying in the report. Facebook and Instagram already have audio recording feature in DMs.

In June this year, Twitter rolled out a test for a limited number of iOS users in the US to record audio snippets and attach those to tweets. The users will soon be



able to post a 140-second long audio tweet, along with the 280 characters as text, as the Each voice Tweet captures up to 140 seconds of audio.

To recall, Twitter originally had a 140-character limit for tweets, which was later increased to 280. Audio can only be added to original tweets and the users can’t include those in replies or retweets with a comment. People will see your voice Tweet appear on their timeline alongside other Tweets.

Twitter hopes that voice tweeting will create a more human experience for listeners and storytellers alike.

Twitter is also working on adding automated captions to audio and video by early 2021, a feature that would help people with disabilities access the service in a much meaningful way.