One of the biggest trends of 2020 was the rise of audio centric apps and services. From podcasting and smart speakers, to voice controlled assistants and hearables, audio was all the rage. A trend that is likely only going to increase throughout 2021 and beyond as witnessed by the early success of Clubhouse.
As the New York Times puts it:
“Clubhouse, which took off in May and has 600,000 registered users, lets people join pop-up audio chat rooms. The app initially found popularity with the Silicon Valley crowd. In May, Clubhouse was valued at nearly $100 million after a round of investment led by Andreessen Horowitz.
However, in recent months, its user base has broadened. In addition to hosting discussions between venture capitalists, the app offers a variety of celebrity talk shows, D.J. nights, networking events, speed dating, theatrical performances and political discussions.
Most of the users chosen for Clubhouse’s pilot program host popular shows that draw audiences of thousands, though others maintain smaller, more dedicated followings. Think of them as part livestreamer, part podcast host and part community manager.”
I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of a rapidly expanding Clubhouse user base. Just listening to people in Silicon Valley gossip is all well and good, it may even be an invaluable source of new ideas, but using the platform in a variety of other ways from speed dating to networking is a total game changer if you ask me. Suddenly, Clubhouse goes from something exclusive and invite only, something reserved for upper class citizens, to something that could go mainstream and become as popular as MeetUp was back in the day or MasterClass is now.
In fact, former TechCrunch editor turned Venture Capitalist, Josh Constine, calls the rise of audio the Talk Graph, indicating that it could soon replace Facebook’s famous Social Graph. As he writes on Twitter, “Clubhouse could make knowledge sharing mainstream through audio & ephemerality, spawning a new graph of who’ll you listen to discuss your interests.”
And speaking of Twitter, there’s even talk that the social media platform is looking to add a Clubhouse like feature of its own to make audio a bigger part of what they do, something they already tried to roll out with audio only tweets.
According to The Verge:
“Twitter plans to take on Clubhouse, the invite-only social platform where users congregate in voice chat rooms, with a way for people to create “spaces” for voice-based conversations right on Twitter. In theory, these spaces could provide another avenue for users to have conversations on the platform — but without harassment and abuse from trolls or bad actors, thanks to tools that let creators of these spaces better control the conversation.
The company plans to start testing the feature this year, but notably, Twitter will be giving first access to some of the people who are most affected by abuse and harassment on the platform: women and people from marginalized backgrounds, the company says.
In one of these conversation spaces, you’ll be able to see who is a part of the room and who is talking at any given time. The person who makes the space will have moderation controls and can determine who can actually participate, too. Twitter says it will experiment with how these spaces are discovered on the platform, including ways to invite participants via direct messages or right from a public tweet.”
All in all, it’s clear that audio is going to be a big part of what we do in 2021. If you’re lucky enough to get invited that is.
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