Thread by @WillOremus

Twitter's head of product @kayvz just spent the past hour on Twitter Spaces, talking about the product, the competition, and the future of the medium, with a bunch of tech reporters—setting a pretty different tone from the anti-media sentiment of a lot of the execs on Clubhouse.

The most interesting part to me was @kayvz (who cofounded Periscope) offering his 20/20 hindsight on the obstacles to live video, and why he thinks live audio addresses some of those, and is ultimately a better fit with the rest of Twitter's product.

"For most people it's literally terrifying to be on live video," @kayvz said. "It's one of the early insights we had at Periscope I think we were not fast enough to act on, to lower the barrier" to going live. (I agree, & wrote this about FB Live in 2016: slate.com/business/2016/…)

"The reason I think Spaces Is resonating and why Clubhouse is having so much success right now is there's so much less friction to have a conversation w/o having to worry how you look on camera, what’s going on around you, whether a dog is barking." —@kayvz, whose dog was barking

Beykpour said Twitter could consider adding a video option at some point in the future, but "it's just not our focus right now."

Ditto the option to record and rebroadcast Spaces events like podcasts—he sees value to listeners but is wary of ruining the spontaneity for speakers

Beykpour even threw a little shade at Facebook at the end of his Twitter Spaces appearance. Asked by @Kantrowitz his reaction to FB reportedly building a Clubhouse clone 6 days after Zuck appeared on Clubhouse, @kayvz quipped "my reaction is I'm surprised it took him this long."

"I think Facebook has a pretty standard playbook here," @kayvz said. "I’m sure they’re gonna build the capability in a way that works as cohesively as it can within the big blue app, do the same in IG, throw a separate app at it just for good measure... "

"They’ve shown in the past that they’re very good at waiting for interesting things to happen and then shamelessly building their own version of it," @kayvz said of FB. "That has worked out well for them."

He added that he thinks the competition will be "great for consumers."

On moderation controls for Twitter Spaces, @kayvz said Twitter is pursuing both Spaces-specific options such as muting and "demoting" people from speakers to listeners, as well as how to integrate Twitter's existing mute and block mechanics in a way that honors user expectations.

Beykpour seems committed to strong host controls for Twitter Spaces. E.g. "If Rich (@RichLightShed, who was also in the Space) doesn't want Kayvon in his Space... Rich ought to be able to do something about that," whether that's preventing him from speaking or from joining at all

One thing I forgot to mention—@kayvz threw a bit of cold water on the idea that recorded Spaces (or Clubhouse rooms) could disrupt podcasts, saying he doubts most convos would really make for compelling listening ex post facto. (I agree—unedited podcasts are rarely very good.)