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I'm scrolling and my social media feed is talking to me, not in one singular, AI-generated voice, but in the voices of people I know and follow on the platform. It's like walking into a cocktail party where the most interesting people are holding forth. This is Airchat and it just might be on to something. Audio in social media is nothing new. We had Clubhouse and then Twitter Spaces (now just Spaces on X). But these are live audio spaces where people conduct panels, present, and do a lot of cross-talk. Airchat is like Twitter (X) but voice-only. On this relatively new platform (available on iOS and Android), but darling of the moment, there's no way to type in your post. Nope, you have to speak it and can do so as an audio-only post or video. I know that sounds terrible but the secret sauce is Airchat's instant voice-to-text transcription that types out your Airchat post almost as you're speaking it. It's not perfect and my feed is already filled with misheard bits that I can't edit (but can delete). Airchat asks for the usual permissions, including access to contacts. Its post layout is self-explanatory. Your posts are in blue. (Image credit: Future) Whispering Visually, Airchat's feed looks like an extremely striped-down X or Threads. There's not much you can do in a post besides post audio with text or record your face – it defaults to the selfie camera – while you speak your post. Video posts playback in the space where your avatar appears next to the transcription of your post. It's so small that some people might miss it. There are notifications and mentions, and conversations can be threaded. I noticed in the latter that if I speak another Airchat member's name, the system will recognize it and tag them in the post. I noticed some people posted photos with their Airchats, but it took me a day to discover that you can only post photos after you've uploaded the voice post. Below each of your posts is a little plus sign that you expand for other post options like delete, add a photo, and add a link. It's so well-hidden that it's no wonder few are posting images. There's also no camera function, so if the image isn't in your photo library, you'll have to drop out of the app to capture it and then share in Airchats. There is a search function where you can find other members or look for people posting about various topics. From there you can see the Latest posts on the topic, Top posts (most engagement), and the people with the keyword as part of their Airchat handle. Airchat posting feels like jumping out of an airplane, pulling the ripcord and hoping that parachute unfurls I was told the platform is still invite-only, but I had no trouble signing up and getting started. In the upper left corner of the app, there's a little gift box where I discovered I had 10 Airchat invites to hand out (that number quickly doubled to 20) – but if anyone can get on, what's the point? Like most new social media platforms, there's not a lot of activity on Airchat. Cofounder, Brian Norgard (who also apparently built Tinder) fills most of my feed with musings about life, interactions with his pals, and details about the product. One defining feature of Airchats is that it's on autoplay. When you open the app it will start playing the first post in your feed. That means the audio will flow out of your speakers or into your AirPods and it won't stop stepping through your entire feed until you hit the pause button. I noticed, but cannot confirm, that everyone's audio is sped up just a tad. Quiet down You get a profile page that, like any self-respecting social media platform, shows your follower count. There's built-in search and if you're looking for an active poster, look no further than co-founder Brian Norgard. (Image credit: Future) If there's one flaw in the Airchat strategy it's how you add posts. Since you can't type, you must speak your up-to-45-seconds post, out loud. I've been composing tweets in my head for almost 20 years. I roll them around, edit, and rethink them. Then I type, edit, reread, and post (yes, I know I can use audio transcription, too). I do the same on Threads, Facebook, and Instagram. Airchat posting feels like jumping out of an airplane, pulling the ripcord, and hoping that parachute unfurls, You hold that post button and it's recording and transcribing. When you let go, Airchat posts, unless you slide your finger over to the left to delete. It does not feel natural and I cannot speak my pithy post thoughts out loud in every situation. If I wanted to tweet during my morning commute, I might pop open X on my iPhone 15 Pro Max and compose a post. I can't start speaking an Airchat while sitting six inches from another commuter. There is something to the Airchat concept and hearing other people's voices and emotions but I'm not sure Airchat has the full idea yet. There has to be a way to surreptitiously add posts without getting looks. Maybe a type option that uses an AI-generated voice for those times you can't use your own. AI voice generation is now almost good enough, with ample training, to recreate our voices. Here that might make sense. I don't know if Airchat will survive past the "hot social media of the moment phase," (Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek is already on it) but, if the surprising rise of Threads has proven anything it's that the door for more social media platforms is still open. We are not yet done with this over-sharing experiment. If we need to do it with our voices, why not? 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I remember when Instagram first launched back in 2010, and all my mates at school were crowded around my friend's iPhone 4 making our Instagram accounts and brainstorming cool handle ideas. Things have changed so much since then, and I truly miss the 'old' Instagram. That being said, I don’t think I miss it enough to have TikTok step in and try to fill in the gap. A notification on the app stated that TikTok is gearing up to release a photo-sharing app for users to post their pictures, called TikTok Notes, which will also convert “existing and future public TikTok photo posts” into posts on the new platform. Currently, Tiktok users can post photo slideshows against music tracks, so it’s safe to assume these will be translated to Instagram-esque posts on the new platform. According to The Verge, TikTok states that it’s “exploring ways to empower our community to create and share their creativity with photos and text in a dedicated space for those formats”. So, from that, we can assume you’ll also be able to add captions to your Notes posts as well. Could TikTok actually take Instagram on? People have been done with Instagram for a while now. The idea of posting to the general public has been left largely to the influencer types, with most people I know having their Instagram account set to private and reserved for friends and family or using their 'Finstas' exclusively. Finstas, or fake Instagrams, became super popular among young people in 2016 and onwards - a tool for those who wanted to keep using Instagram but have a section carved out to be themselves and post without worrying about having perfect photos. Finstas still did not save Instagram from being labeled a wasteland of a platform. Where Instagram is a lot more controlled in terms of its feed, TikTok has an interesting setup in that publicly posted videos could be thrown across to anyone on the app, no matter if you’re mutually following people or not. So, it would be interesting to see how this translates to a photo-based app. TikTok is an insanely popular app and the fact that the new app will be incorporating already existing photo posts could give it the head start it needs to compete with Instagram. I’m assuming it’ll be a similar case to Instagram Threads, where everyone is already allocated an account and you simply have to activate it. That opens the door to TikTok's estimated one billion monthly active users to log in and try the app out. Of course, not every social media doppelganger is guaranteed success. The downfall of Twitter (sorry, 'X') brought on several other similar apps like Mastodon and Bluesky, and despite how awful things have been on Twitter they’re not really seeing massive numbers that would make them as big as the app they’re replacing. Threads seemed to be a guaranteed hit given the number of already-established Instagram accounts, but it only has 160 monthly million users, compared to X’s 250 million daily active users. I honestly think X would have to be wiped off the web and our phones before people flocked to any of the alternatives. Overall though, TikTok Notes has the social media scene buzzing with anticipation. TikTok's smart move to integrate existing photo content and its massive user base could challenge Instagram's reign. Though, history teaches us that not every alternative is a winner. As TikTok Notes prepares to debut, we can only speculate about its potential to topple Instagram - or forge its own path in the digital realm. View the full article