Twitter is introducing new changes to its API that allows third-party developers to design tools, applications and services for Spaces – it’s audio platform – so as to maximise platform conversations. The focus of this new update is on making it easier to discover Spaces, which is one of the most requested features for developers using this tool.
The company announced that it is providing new endpoints for Spaces support in its Twitter API v2, initially focused on the discovery of Live or Scheduled Spaces. In the future, Twitter may add a new API update that will allow developers to create more tools for hosts of Spaces.
Twitter first released a completely redesigned API last year to make it easier to support new features at higher speeds when updating its developer platform. The new support for Twitter Spaces in the API is an example of a plan the Micro-blogging site is currently implementing.
The company said the new API update is intended for developers to release new products that will make it easier for Twitter users and beyond to find Twitter Spaces. This could potentially expand Spaces’ reach and bring audio chat to more people, which could make Twitter an increasingly competitive landscape on audio-based social media.
Twitter said developers will have access to two new endpoints — Spaces lookup and Spaces search. These endpoints will allow developers to lookup live and scheduled Spaces using specific criteria — like the Spaces ID, user ID or keywords.
As for the “Spaces lookup” endpoint, Twitter said it will offer developers a way to begin understanding the public metadata and metrics associated with a Space, such as the Participant Count, Speaker Count, Host Profile Information, Detected Language Being Used, Start Time, Scheduled Start Time, Creation Time, and Status.
Twitter confirmed it spoke with the developers to decide which Spaces features to include in their API. They told the company they wanted notifications to let them know when to visit, as well as features to help people find spaces that they might be interested in. The developers said they want to develop a tool that would allow Spaces hosts to better understand how well audio chat works. However, most of these options are not yet available in today’s API update. Twitter said it is “exploring” other features, such as tools that allow developers to insert notifications into their products, and tools that invoke specific metric fields available in the API, or allow developers to create dashboards.
Some developers have been attending the weekly Spaces hosted by Daniele Bernardi of the Twitter Spaces team and are already aware of upcoming updates. Starting today, developers who have access to the v2 API will be able to start building with the new endpoints, but there are currently no plans to release new experiences.
