Twitter’s New Audio Cards Play Music & Podcasts In Your Mobile Timeline

Twitter announced a new audio experience for iOS and Android today, giving people one-tap access to listen to music, podcasts and other sonic content.

The new feature — Audio Cards — is being launched in partnership with third-party streaming services, though only one — SoundCloud — was identified in the blog post announcing the rollout.

Make that two. About an hour after the original release, Twitter announced that the feature has also been activated for Apple’s iTunes, specifically for one track in iTunes, the first song on the Foo Fighters’ new album:

This next one's the first song on our new album! Listen here http://t.co/KVfURdxooT.

— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) October 16, 2014

Ultimately, Twitter said, Audio Cards will be enabled for a larger selection — but not all — songs on iTunes, and enable users to make purchases from the Apple store with a few taps.

Those interested in merely listening can now tap on their mobile devices hear the audio inline and can dock the Card to continue listening while they scroll through their Twitter timeline. (As you can see in the tweet above the Cards don’t display in embedded tweets, but they do display and play on the desktop in Twitter’s original Player Card.)

Currently, the Cards have been activated for a number of SoundCloud partners — including the White House, NASA, NPR, This American Life, BBC World Service, Cold Play and David Guetta — but eventually all SoundCloud links should work, Twitter said. “We’re just beginning to test the Audio Card,” a Twitter spokesperson wrote in an email, “and plan to make it available to more partners and creators in the future so that we can bring even more in-the-moment audio to millions of listeners on Twitter.”

About The Author

Martin Beck

Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.