Twitter has started rolling out the brand new Voice Messages feature that you can send via DM in India. Originally announced in September last year, the Voice DM feature allows you to send a recorded voice message via direct message. The company said the new voice DM is rolling out gradually to Twitter users in select countries.
The feature is rolling out to select users in India, Brazil, and Japan. However, it is still called testing and not a feature ready for mass deployment.
Similar to voice tweets, voice DMs were designed as an online recording feature. However, it’s unclear if the Voice DM feature has a set limit like voice tweets. It’s worth noting that the feature is being rolled out in a phased manner, which means not everyone will benefit from the new Voice DM feature at the same time. You can check the functionality by going to your DM and trying to send a voicemail. If you notice the microphone icon, you can hold it to record and release it to send. This is mainly how it works on the iOS platform.
On Android, Twitter users can record voice by tapping the icon to start recording and tap again to stop recording. Twitter for Android users can also listen to the voicemail before sending it to others via direct message.
Announcing the new Voice DM feature, Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director of Twitter India, said, “India is a priority market for Twitter, and that’s why we’re constantly testing new features and learning from people’s experience on service here.
“We’re excited to bring the voicemail experience in DMs to the country and give people a new way to express themselves and help them connect through the nuances, emotion and empathy built hearing someone’s voice,” he added.
The voicemail feature rolled out on Twitter is a nice attempt to offer something we already have on instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, etc. The new Voice DM feature can provide Twitter users with more convenience in one-to-one conversations.
In June, Twitter began rolling out audio tweets to iOS. Users who received the new feature saw a waveform icon placed next to the camera icon.
Tweeting with voice wasn’t too different from tweeting with text. To get started, open the tweet composer and tap on the new icon with the wavelengths. You will see your profile picture with the record button at the bottom, tap it to record your voice. Each voice tweet captured up to 140 seconds of audio.
