The New Media Sounds Great!

Question: "When are we going to Mars?"

Elon Musk: -Some complex interpretations of space- "I don't know, we can say 6 years from now."

Question: "Why is it so important to you that people live on another planet?"

Elon Musk: "I was once trying to understand what the meaning of life was. Why are we here? I was a bit depressed then. What saved me was reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was inspired to explore the galaxy ..."

This was a section of a Clubhouse room where Elon Musk talked about GameStop events, Tesla, SpaceX, and many other things. He joined as a speaker in The Good Times room at the Clubhouse last Monday, and this situation has forced the maximum number of listeners, which is 5,000, in a room.

·      So, what is this Clubhouse?

·      What problem does it solve?

·      What is the difference from the alternatives?

·      What is the biggest risk?

Clubhouse reached 600 thousand users in its first six months and now has 2 million users. The app is currently only available to Apple users. 

At this stage of its development, no venture has grown as fast as Clubhouse.

Clubhouse 101:

Background: Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio platform that provides rooms for casual, live conversations with people from all over the world. Launched in March 2020, the platform allows users to join rooms where a wide variety of conversations take place. From brand strategy to space travel, everything from the Bosphorus to the meaning of life is discussed at Clubhouse.Being the unicorn? As recently as December, the Clubhouse was worth $ 100 million. The last round of funding added $ 1 billion in value to the platform, which represents a tenfold increase for the average San Francisco start-up. Currently, Clubhouse is not a profitable application either. It has not established the monetisation model yet.

The biggest problem? Of course, the moderation. Clubhouse: It has stated firmly that it will not allow abuse, racism, religious intolerance, sexism or hate speech. However, how much this situation can be done in rooms where instant conversations are provided is quite open to discussion.

New ways to make money online:

Future plans: After $ 1 billion in valuation Clubhouse announced, it will announce a line of products that allow creators to monetise their content. In the next few months, the company; It plans to test payment systems available to creators through features such as tips, ticket selling, and subscriptions.  

What this means for you: Clubhouse's rapid success can make sense for those of us who are looking for shortcuts like the "ten golden rule of rapid growth". Some even think Clubhouse could surpass TikTok as the next "social media star". Besides, the use of Clubhouse exclusively for those who have an invitation is undoubtedly a very attractive element.

Are other social media platforms inspired? When we see Snapchat's story feature being copied by Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, giant social media platforms may copy the popular features of Clubhouse and publish enhancements. Twitter is the pioneer and has already launched the Spaces feature in December. We will see if Facebook, Instagram and others will follow.

The new media that Clubhouse noticed: Sound?

Undoubtedly, the sincerity of the voice has made social media much more attractive in the age of social distance and isolation. Jimi Tele, CEO of Chekmate, a "text-free" dating app that connects users via audio and video, says he wants to create an app that we cannot make ourselves appear to be someone we are.

"We wanted to create a community that wanted to reflect its authenticity, where we encourage users to be themselves, away from the anonymity and deception allowed by messaging," says Tele. Users of the app can share audio notes of an average of five seconds and then progressively longer. While Chekmate has a video option, Tele says several thousand users of the app overwhelmingly prefer to use their audio-only. "Voice is perceived as less intimidating than video messages," he says.

This closeness and originality is also the reason why Gilles Poupardin created the Cappuccino. Poupardin wondered why there isn't an app that currently collects voice memos into one downloadable file. "We all have written group rooms that we created with our friends," he says. But what if you could hear your friends? That would be a really good experience. "

"We were interested in whether your audio could add a layer of connectivity to the public chat," says Rémy Bourgoin, a senior software engineer on Twitter's "voice tweets and Spaces" team.

Bourgoin says Spaces has a vision of "being as friendly and comfortable as attending a nice dinner". "You don't need to know everybody there to have a good time, but you should feel comfortable sitting at the table."

You may have turned your nose to Twitter's desire to create a "relaxed" and "intimate" space. After all, Twitter doesn't quite have a history of creating an online environment that embraces vulnerable users and protects them from abuse. But before taking Spaces beyond a small beta group of users, Bourgoin says the company was deliberately slow, even going so far as to include subtitling, a rare accessibility feature on audio platforms. "Currently Spaces can be reported by anyone in space," says Bourgoin. "The reports will be examined in detail by our team, which will assess violations of Twitter rules."

The Clubhouse made a lot of noise because;

1)    Because it's somewhere between a podcast and a party, and people love both.

2)    The great thing about podcasts - which you already know because you've been listening to us all the time :) - is that it lets you learn how people you find interesting and successful think and see the world. The more you listen, the more you will think you are like them.

3)    As you know, audio is much better than a written medium or video when you need a vision for something like driving or cooking.

4)    Another good thing about sound is that it is a much better environment for conversation than others because it doesn't matter how you look at that moment while you're just talking.

5)    The best part that distinguishes the Clubhouse from podcasts and the like is that it is alive. In a room you are listening to, you can instantly join the conversation by raising your hand and tell all the other audience in the room about yourself and your ideas.

6)    From the perspective of a product manager, we can say that the two most important metrics to look at whether a product has found its place in the market are the time spent per session and retention rates. Which looks pretty good, because our Twitter feed is full of images of how many hours people spend a day in Clubhouse. (More than 5 hours a day alone, I guess we should solve that situation?)

So do you use the Clubhouse? What are your thoughts on the platform?