Twitter is launching voice DMs in India, Japan, and Brazil, enabling users to record messages up to 140 seconds long. Since the feature is still technically an experiment, it will be rolled out incrementally.

Twitter Dives Into Voice DMs

Twitter is continuing to expand its scope beyond text-based conversations. On its Twitter India account, the platform announced that users will now be able to record voice messages in DMs.

The feature "will be rolled out in phases," which means that some users might not be able to take advantage of this feature for quite a while. Twitter is reportedly only launching voice DMs in India, Japan, and Brazil—for now.

Upon getting access to the feature, users simply have to open their DMs, and hit the Soundwave icon on the right side of the message box. Users can then record a voice message, replay it, and then send it on its way.

Voice messages will be limited to 140 seconds long, which might not be long enough for long-winded rants and explanations. Rather, it's just enough for a brief statement, much like the character limit that Twitter places on Tweets.

This feature will be available across iOS and Android, but will have limited functionality on desktop. Users will only be able to listen to voice messages on desktop, not record them.

Twitter previously expanded its voice Tweets feature in 2020, allowing users to record a Tweet and send it out to the Twitterverse. Even still, voice Tweets don't appear to be the most popular form of communication on the platform—it's pretty rare to come across a voice Tweet during your daily scroll.

In the same vein, the platform also started testing Spaces, its Clubhouse-like feature that consists of voice-based chatrooms. Spaces lets you set up a dedicated room with friends, where you can chat only using your voices. In January 2021, Twitter expanded the Spaces beta to more users, but it's still unclear when it will reach all of Twitter.

Introducing More Ways to Chat on Twitter

If Twitter continues down this route, voice-based conversations will inevitably become part of the platform. Since Clubhouse began its invitation-only beta testing on iOS, other platforms have been rushing to overtake the app before it even hits the public.

That said, Twitter isn't the only platform that has created its own Clubhouse copycat. Facebook is also trying out a dedicated app for voice chats, which has been unofficially named Fireside. It's clear that Twitter and Facebook see Clubhouse as a potential threat, which is why both platforms have already started experimenting with clones.