Despite the whole audio social front being a ‘neutral zone’ at best, there does seem to be a certain value to it. Recently, audio social tools have become more of a significant element of the broader connective process. More people have begun using voice messages on Twitter, Facebook, Messenger, and many more, discovering new ways to engage and communicate with others. On that note, WhatsApp just announced that they have several improvements inbound for in-app audio recordings.
WhatsApp-and-Away
As WhatsApp believes, the ability to use your voice instead of a simple text to get your message across holds some level of intrinsic value. On their platform, they surmise that said value makes for an obvious bonus, with users now allegedly, on average, sending around 7 billion voice messages per day.
Given its use of voice recordings, WhatsApp now looks to enhance its whole audio social experience by adding a range of new features designed to help users maximize their audio interactions.
WhatsApp will be rolling out a range of new voice message options, featuring the following:
- Out of Chat Playback: Listen to a voice message outside of the chat so you can multitask or read and respond to other messages.
- Pause/Resume Recording: When recording a voice message, you can now pause the recording and resume when ready, in case you’re interrupted or need to gather your thoughts.
- Waveform Visualization: Shows a visual representation of the sound on the voice message to help follow the recording.
- Draft Preview: Listen to your voice messages before sending them.
- Remember Playback: If you pause when listening to a voice message, you can pick up where you left off when you return to the chat.
- Fast Playback on Forwarded Messages: Play voice messages at 1.5x or 2x speeds to listen to messages faster on both regular and forwarded messages.
These are quite the significant add-ons, particularly with the pause/resume playback recording option that can prove frustrating on longer messages. Audio connection options such as these do prove beneficial in regions like India or similar regions where a lot of languages are spoken, but not everyone understands the same in text form. In such cases, the capacity to record and create voice messages helps reduce the impact and likelihood of communication barriers.
The Wrap
With WhatsApp’s growing global presence, developing audio social capacities has become a key proposition for the app. Reiterating the 7 billion audio messages per day, there’s clearly huge potential for audio to be a major connective tool in various ways. Given the impact audio social is making in Eastern markets, it might well be a major consideration for Western ones too, especially if you consider the fact that platforms such as Clubhouse and Twitter are currently investing resources on this front as well.
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