After previewing the coming functionality last month, X has now shared a first look at how video will be enabled within Spaces chats, with an optional toggle in the Spaces set-up that will let users activate their camera during the broadcast.
As you can see in this example, posted by X designer Andrea Conway, along with the option to record a space, you’ll also soon be able to switch on video streaming, adding another element to your Spaces discussion.
Which is not entirely new.
I mean, it is to Spaces, but various platforms already offer multi-participant live video broadcasting, with Instagram and Facebook enabling the functionality for group chats in the same way. There are limitations on these tools, as facilitating multi-person streaming is system intensive, and costly as a result, and I would suspect that X too will enact similar limitations on exactly how many video streams it’ll be able to display at any given time within a Space.
It’s not clear yet how many guests that’ll be, but X owner Elon Musk explained last month that, eventually, users will be able to turn the video on, then the person who’s speaking will be highlighted to all viewers during the broadcast.
The addition is another step towards Elon’s “everything app” vision, which will see X incorporate functionalities from every other platform across the web. Live video chat also leans into its new “video first platform” approach, by facilitating more video content, which could help to improve engagement.
And with X also hosting around 80,000 Spaces chats per day in the app, there’s a lot of potential for this to be a significant factor, depending on how it’s eventually rolled out.
There’s no timeline for a live release at this stage, but it does look to be coming soon.
