We are a day away from going live with our first show on Twitter Spaces. In this post I talk about the origin of the show idea, what equipment is being used, will they continue after the first four shows and if they do continue, where do we want to go with future shows.
AZ Community Roundtable is a new talk show (podcast) hosted on Twitter Spaces. The show will talk about Microsoft Cloud services within Azure, inviting guest speakers who will be hosted by myself (James Cook). Each guest speaker and the host will have a talking point to discuss among each other. The audience (listeners) will be able to use the hashtag #azrountablelive to ask questions or provide their own opinion on the topics we are discussing.
How did the show come about
Literally I got the the Twitter Spaces feature on my iPhone. I wanted to be involved on shows for a little while now and been interested in arranging my own. There were podcasts and shows on Twitch, YouTube and other audio platforms, it seemed that Twitter Spaces being so new could allow me to build an audience quickly. I put the idea out on Twitter and got an amazing response from the community and employees at Microsoft which led me to organising and advertising the show dates.
Recruiting Speakers
Speakers (guest hosts) for the first four shows hasnāt been extremely hard to recruit as many were interested, but the initial idea was to have three guest speakers which has been revised and reduced to two guest speakers per show. The hope is once the first shows are live we will get more individuals from the community to apply and appear on the show.
What equipment is being used.
This has been the biggest pain throughout the planning stage of this show. Hosting and speaking on Twitter Spaces can only be done on an Android or iOS device, making it hard if you want to use some of your audio equipment to record the show and to use a better microphone. I purchased a couple of cable with no success to getting my iOS device to use my Yeti microphone. I therefore abandoned the idea of using my physical mobile devices and went with BlueStack to install Android on my PC, install the Twitter app and pass through my mic audio to the app. This allowed me to use my Yeti mic and also record the audio using my PC. Once Twitter has developed the browser version to allow for hosting and speakers, this wonāt be necessary (I canāt wait).
Is it just a live show
Even though itās live on Twitter Spaces, I am recoding the shows to be available on multiple podcast platforms and on YouTube for those who couldnāt watch live. This did involve having all speakers agree to audio being recorded and distributed on platforms other than Twitter. It did put in the limitation of allowing the audience to speak live also as we wouldnāt be able to get their permission to record. I hope Twitter will introduce either a recording feature as part of Spaces or a toggle to approve/deny using their audio to make this a much easier process.
Is it just four shows
I hope not, depending on how the first four shows go, I will then decide if the show continues on the same or a different schedule to the fortnightly shows we have planned. Feedback will be key as well as participation by the wider community.
The future
Once I can confirm that future shows are going ahead, I want to build on the shows status and start introducing a site with information from the content discussed. I like the idea of recognising those who participate in talks, so a āpage of fameā would be nice for those individuals as well as an appearance counter for returning guests speakers. A reference on LinkedIn option would be a more entailed option on top of the page of fame. To build on the fan base (if there is one), a free membership with newsletters and mentorship from others in the community is something I really think will work well. Once the show grows, working with Microsoft to to provide sponsorship so we can offer prizes or merchandise. Finally, being able to do some in person shows would be amazing but for now virtual allows me to reach a larger audience.
Please reach out to me on Twitter to provide feedback, ideas or support
