Elon Musk has announced that X, formerly Twitter, will be bringing video to Spaces, the social network’s live audio conversation feature. Musk said X plans to launch the feature by the end of the year, but “certainly by early next year.”
“From a feature standpoint, we are working on adding video to Spaces,” Musk said. “It’ll just be a simple thing where you can turn the video on or off.”
Musk went on to note that if there is more than one speaker on a Spaces session, the video feed will switch to whichever person is currently speaking, similar to the way Google Meet or other video conferencing platforms display the current speaker.
“It’s helpful to see people’s body language as they speak… It conveys more information if you can see their face and their body language if they wish to,” Musk said.
By bringing video to Spaces, X likely hopes that it will be a way for users to further engage with their audience on the social network without having to go to a third-party platform.
It’s worth noting that X launched a new feature over the summer that allows users to broadcast live video on the social network. The feature is pretty similar to the live video streaming offerings from other platforms, like Facebook Live and Instagram Live.
When Spaces was introduced back in 2021, the feature was seen as a direct competitor of Clubhouse, which gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Musk’s takeover of the social network, he hasn’t made any major changes to Spaces, other than renaming the feature from Twitter Spaces to X Spaces. Now, Musk and X are ready to move Spaces beyond audio-only conversations.
Musk made the announcement during a Spaces session hosted yesterday by Mario Nawfal. The Spaces also included Andrew Tate, Vivek Ramaswamy, Alex Jones and other controversial figures. Musk appeared on the Spaces session after X reinstated Alex Jones’ account on the platform following a user poll. Jones is infamous for peddling conspiracies about the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which claimed 28 lives.