ClubHouse - First Impression/Review

First Impression/Review of Clubhouse

Clubhouse has suddenly become the cool kid on board, amidst various social networking apps. I got an invite for the app. It’s been two days; I am using this frequently and this is my impression/review about Club house.

What’s Clubhouse: As they explain themselves. "A new type of social product based on voice [that] allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people around the world. Its invite only, voice based social networking app. But I would say it’s much more than that if it goes full blown. I am saying this because I have been a regular listener of podcasts, online learning platforms, and all popular social networking apps.

How to get on it: This app is as of now available only for iPhone users and is on an invite basis. I got an invite from my husband and joined recently and since then I am loving it. Don’t have invite, ask for it. My husband asked for it on twitter and got it. You need to just enter the same number on which you got an invite while joining the platform. Easy breezy.

First Look: So the first thing you will notice is that this app offers you a vast area of interests to choose from. Accordingly, the suggestion will be made to you to follow people who are already on the platform. You need to make your profile. You can either manually enter your details or simply sync/import your profile details from twitter. After entering your bio and choosing your interest fields, you are good to go ahead and join clubs based on your interests and also follow various people. You can also sync your Insta profile with it.

Invite others: The moment you join clubhouse, you get two invites, and your contact list can be explored for you to choose to send invites to any two people. Once you are done following people, joining clubs and connecting to people, you are ready to experience the magic of this platform.

My impression: So, I used this app for a day and I am sure it’s going to disrupt community interaction-based platforms, if not that, it’s definitely taking it to another level. It’s one step ahead from podcasts. It is taking networking to another level and making it really interactive, useful and real time. The comfort of not to have to be on video all the time is a big plus. You can enter room and can listen to/join the conversation happening, and can raise hand if you have a question or an insight, or all the while silently making notes, learning while doing your own stuff. I entered 3-4 rooms depending on my interest area. Lingered around for some time, enjoyed, listened to people talk and left. No intrusion on any end, what so ever. Today morning I joined a room for Instagram marketing tips, which was on my agenda for a long time. I was blown away by the interaction. It was so real and open. Every platform offers you some kind of learning but not every platform encourages you to be vulnerable while you learn. The Instagram influencers were sharing knowledge openly and the discussion was better than any conversation in a conference room. Less formal but thoroughly professional, the faces were not there, just voice, which was way better and less intimidating. I was allowed to join as a speaker by the moderator and I asked my questions about Instagram marketing which I would hesitate to otherwise ask. In fact, I was trying to find some Instagram quick crash courses and YouTube tutorials to answer my concerns. But both the platforms are one sided and there is no real time response. Here, I got very honest and crisp answers by the people who are actually doing it hands on. There were other experts, who are big time Instagram and tiktok influencers, helping me through various insights. The discussion went on and on about various smaller/bigger aspects of Instagram reels. I could never imagine this kind of information exchange on any other platform, with no bullshit what so ever. Each and every participant was professional and fully aware of their knowledge.

I leant so much in the 30-35 minutes interaction, what I’ll learn in 6-7 classes course on any other learning platform and I also got to foster new relationships and build my network across the globe. This platform is going to disrupt the way we are learning today. The various clubs are like mini schools filled with experts and all you need to do is just be there, knowledge is being doled out and you just need to be ready to take it while you can also interact, share your views and get better understanding, and it’s all real time. It’s crazy.

How a room looks: While you are in the room. You will see first section of speakers. The main speaker/ moderator lets the speakers inside the room and allow them to speak. Below that there is a segment of those who are in the room and are followed by the speakers. And third segment below is of all the participants who are in the room and are listening quietly. They can raise their hand if they have something to share and once the moderator allows them, they can talk and can be heard. While the top actively speaking people in the room will get a green star icon on their button image and few also had a celebration icon on their image, (including me), not really sure what that signifies.

What all you can do:

• You don’t want to talk; you have an option of leaving quietly. You can always invite more people to this room if you have someone in your contacts you think can be benefited from the conversation.
• You can invite people from your contacts and can start your room with other people as speakers and co-hosts.
• You can join clubs of your topic of interest and can be part of the discussion there.
• You can build your network through endless possibilities. I saw very less Indians on the platform yet but I am sure it will get a lot of traction here.
• You can schedule conversation and you can add them to your google/phone calendar.

"You can be a learner, a silent observer and an influencer at the same time. Whoa, I said it."

• Since you have already linked your twitter account and Instagram account to your club house account, you will suddenly observe people following you on twitter and networking starts. I love this aspect of syncing social media apps. While I was interacting with various experts in that room, I got 9 new followers.

Once I was done, I searched for few clubs about Indian entrepreneurs, HR, tech investments etc. and joined them. I also got invitation to join an Indian startup club and one invite as a co-host for a conversation on work life balance. So, it’s like 360-degree learning. You can explore so much in a day, there won’t a be a dull moment if you are engaging enough.

Last word: Overall, I am enjoying it much more than one sided podcast, super distracting you tube and Instagram, never forgiving twitter and this can easily be a tough competition for the online learning platforms and superb platform for video shy people. It’s like you want to learn/talk/discuss about something, enter a room where all the experts in the industry are sitting together on one table, talking to each other and you get to sit amongst them. You get to interact and ask questions too and all this while you don’t even have to show your face. Its disruptive.