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Listen up: Twitter Spaces, the social media platform’s response to audio chat hit Clubhouse, has launched. 

After months of speculation, testing and proclamations that “Now you can Tweet and Talk,” Twitter released the product Monday to users whose accounts have more than 600 followers. Eventually, some users may get paid to host Spaces.

“Spaces are for small and intimate conversations with just a few others, or for big discussions about what’s unfolding right now with thousands of listeners,” Twitter said Monday in a blog post. “From connecting to your favorite musician to a post-show about the game or a recap of news that just dropped, dig into the topics and conversations you care about with people you know and people you want to know.”

The much-talked-about Spaces product for iOS and Android comes less than a week after Twitter barely beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations for first-quarter earnings but didn’t meet analysts’ projections for daily user growth. Twitter said it has 199 million daily users compared with analysts’ projected 206 million, driving its stock down by as much as 15% in after-hours trading.

Twitter says Spaces are for “small and intimate conversations” or “big discussions.” (Photo: Twitter)

Like Facebook, Twitter said it’s concerned about Apple’s privacy changes to iOS 14.5, but it’s too soon to determine their impact.

Nearly four months ago, Twitter imposed an unprecedented ban on Donald Trump from the platform, blaming him in the Capitol attack Jan. 6. The social media company began labeling tweets that might have misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. That was followed up with last week’s launch of Birdwatch, which lets users point out misleading tweets.

Twitter also released Fleets, where users can share text, photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours, similar to Snapchat.

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Twitter let a select group of its users hold live audio chat rooms on topics ranging from politics to sports to entertainment, vowing that the Spaces feature would be available for other users.  

Twitter users with more than 600 followers can create a Space by hitting the tweet compose icon or from Fleets at the top of their timeline. 

When someone speaks in a Space,  a purple bubble will appear at the top of followers’ timelines for as long as the chat is live. When users join a Space chat to listen, they can react using emojis and follow along using captions. Users can tweet and direct message the specific Space chat they’re listening to as well as make a request to speak in the discussion.

Twitter will soon roll out optional Spaces features, including scheduling, co-hosting and moderation. 

The company said it’s working on a Ticketed Spaces feature in which a select group of Twitter users could set the amount and price of tickets for chats. Twitter said hosts would earn the majority of money made from ticket sales, and the company would take a small amount of the revenue.

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