Audio-Only Platform Clubhouse Is the App for People Who Miss Conferences

People on Clubhouse love talking about Clubhouse. Early on Monday morning, a group hosted a Clubhouse for Beginners session, offering a roadmap for users new to the app: “On Clubhouse, you are able to be yourself,” one male entrepreneur said, confidently addressing the 50-person crowd. “You’re not a keyboard warrior like on some of these other platforms like Twitter, where you can sit there and hate on people all day. And I think there are some really meaningful conversations happening here.” Clubhouse, which debuted in April, is a social network of audio chat rooms, each focused on a different topic, occasion or idea. It is still nascent and invite-only, but The Information reported on Friday that the company’s most recent funding round (completed this week) was expected to attract a $1 billion valuation, led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which also led its last round. Currently, the platform doesn’t make money but in Silicon Valley, a hefty user base is a must-have before monetization. While the platform has already been copycatted by a major player—Twitter Spaces started rolling out in recent months—Clubhouse clarified last weekend that it will start a paid creator model akin to YouTube and TikTok. Options for Clubhouse creators could include “tipping, tickets or subscriptions” and a “Creator Grant Program to support emerging Clubhouse creators.” The New York Times reported last month that Clubhouse had already begun testing its creator program with 40 influencers, offering them access to the app’s founders and early use of new features. There has been a massive surge in users recently, driven by the app’s elite allure—it boasts a cluster of celebrity users like Drake, Ashton Kutcher and Tiffany Haddish—and a prolonged pandemic-fueled need for connection. Clubhouse's base has shot up to 2 million weekly active users, doubling over the last few weeks, according to its founders. App analytics firm Sensor Tower found that Clubhouse has been downloaded 2.4 million times globally on Apple's App Store (it’s still iPhone-only), with 1.3 million of those downloads coming in January alone. Comscore, however, reported only 358,000 unique Clubhouse users in the U.S. in December, its most recent month of data. The audio focus of Clubhouse also jives with the recent boom in audiobooks, digital audio, podcasting and smart speakers. If Clubhouse chooses to introduce ads, there’s likely a market: eMarketer estimates that podcast advertising will exceed $1 billion in 2021, and U.S. digital radio ads will approach $4 billion. Keeping tabs on the keyboard warriors Despite what the entrepreneur said in the Beginners chatroom, there are the equivalents of keyboard warriors on the app. In another room late last week, one man bragged loudly that “raising money is hard,” but that he’s a “hustler.” You can find more than your fair share of hustle porn on the app. And Clubhouse, still somewhat a haven for tech bros, has had serious issues with hate speech, diversity and online harassment, especially in its early days. Clubhouse One female moderator of the Clubhouse for Beginners group said she has valued the regular founder-hosted town halls that have addressed these pain points, especially in recent months. “I know early on, for most of us that were on [in the] summer of last year, there was a lot of [discussion about] moderation because there was a lot of very offensive stuff happening,” she said. “It’s quite interesting to see what Clubhouse is today versus what Clubhouse was June or July of last year.” Clubhouse continues to struggle with moderation—an admittedly tough task for any platform, let alone a free-for-all audio space—though the company told Vanity Fair it’s trying to equip volunteer moderators with better tools and information to handle rule-breaking behavior, a statement reminiscent of Reddit’s system. Additionally, each room has a drop-down list of rules and users can report abuses through the app, but instances of abuse on Clubhouse often spill onto Twitter and the tabloids. And not everything on Clubhouse seems crass or braggadocious, though it’s definitely promotional and uber-professional: Last Friday, venture capital firm SignalFire’s Josh Constine, one of the original 40 people in the creator program, hosted a lively discussion with reporters and audio producers about Apple’s foray into podcasting. Tuesday's agenda is jam-packed: music entrepreneurship, psychedelics, TikTok trends and, of course, a conversation about Clubhouse’s competitors. A networker’s dream After a few days on the app, Clubhouse feels like a networker’s paradise. Even the social elements feel like everyone is passing around business cards. In short, Clubhouse feels like a space for people who miss attending in-person conferences. Within Clubhouse rooms, there's a list of speakers at the top, below that is a section for people in the audience who the speakers follow on the app, and then at the bottom is the general pool of listeners. Interactivity on the app is controlled by moderators, who are denoted with green stars in the speaker pool. There is hardly any text—no comments section, just event descriptions and user bios. If you want to speak in a session, you raise your hand and the moderators can choose to allow you to become a speaker, but they can also demote you to the general pool. And once the conversation is over, it's over: The system does not auto-record conversations or provide transcripts of what transpired. A place to solicit raw feedback The opportunities for brands to contribute to the app are still limited, said Bridget Jewell, creative director at independent agency Periscope. Even if it had advertising or sponsorship opportunities, the brand safety risks are significant. “It’s a really great way to get stripped-down, really raw information that is of-the-moment in a very simple way,” Jewell said in an interview with Adweek, pointing to what Starbucks and other brands have done with private Instagram pages. “That’s where I think the power is going to be for brands.” Alessandro Bogliari, co-founder and CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, fears that the networking focus of the platform could lead it to be more of an avenue for large creators promoting their own services rather than contributing to the community. “The hustling is pretty covered,” Bogliari said in an interview with Adweek. “There are categories on Clubhouse that are not competitive yet… from environment to sports and some others that good creators can still get a following when it opens up.” For now, there’s an element of demand, which fuels intrigue and newness. After all, it’s called Clubhouse—you need to know someone to get in.