Twitter just launched a new test on both Android and the Web. The test would enable users to control the playback speed of both video and voice Tweets, similar to how you can set YouTube’s video playback to either hasten or slow down the flow of a particular clip.
Speed In Essence
The new playback speed options provide users with a range of settings to choose from, allowing them to customize their viewing experience. As the name suggests, playback dictates the speed at which an audio or video clip plays, speeding it up or flowing it down to a degree that allows viewers to look for additional or specific elements.
Twitter has been working on its playback options over the past few months, with reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong first spotting them in testing last September. When it was first spotted, it could have been in closed beta-testing, but today’s announcement would mean that Twitter is officially moving things onto live testing. While it won’t be available for iOS users just yet, which is surprising, Twitter will no doubt expand the function once testing yields more consistent and positive results.
Many users have been calling for variable playback speed options on all apps, which does make sense especially if a platform caters to any audio or video content. Since it has been shown that attention spans are indeed “shrinking”, with short-form content being the choice-presentation format by most, more and more people gradually begin gravitating towards consuming longer content faster. Speeding up playback allows exactly that, while the ability to slow things down helps to assess more specific details and elements, improving comprehension. Such options can help improve the viewing experience, coming in especially handy when viewing or listening to language tutorial clips.
In a nutshell, it helps make longer videos a little less boring for those with extremely short attention spans – imagine fast-forwarding news to have the weather person “rap” the forecast in a chipmunk’s voice, while also making shorter recordings a bit more intriguing by allowing users to drag it out, inspecting subtler elements that might uncover new or hidden details.
The Wrap
While it may seem like a simple update, it is. An update doesn’t have to be grand or convoluted to make an impact. More often than not, and as we stated before, the simplest additions can make the biggest difference. Just last year, Twitter updated its video playback quality, allowing users to finally post video Tweets in high-definition (HD)
On the broader side of things, this update also marks an evolutionary turning point for Twitter, showcasing its focus on other platform elements besides just its Tweets. Though lesser known for its other media content, Twitter is slowly improving its range of video, image, and audio capabilities, looking to better align itself with certain content powerhouses such as Facebook, Tiktok, and YouTube. While Twitter won’t be able to directly compete with those players on the same front, it can at least improve its presence with these updates, potentially grabbing more attention, eventually resulting in more traffic. Well, at least that’s the ideal.
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