Clubhouse: Will it be the future of the social media?
Maybe many don’t know what a clubhouse is. This application has suddenly become popular and viral since the CEO of Tesla and Space X, Elon Musk conducted a chat session via this social media and uploaded it on the Youtube channel. Many celebrities and influencers have joined in to create this new social media.
Clubhouse is an audio-chat based social media application. Users can chat and discuss with other people on various topics. You can imagine, this is like a podcast but live, so it is more interactive because we can talk and be exclusive. This chat room or conversation room is like a conference call. Some speak, some are moderators, and some listen.
Quoted from Business Today, Clubhouse was created by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Paul Davison and former Google employee Rohan Seth. According to PC Mag, this application was launched in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to hit America.
The company behind the Clubhouse is Alpha Exploration Co. Clubhouse will rise to its name worldwide in 2021 thanks to a promotion by Elon Musk.
As of February 1, 2021, Clubhouse has 2 million users. The current valuation of Clubhouse is around USD 1 billion and is considered a Unicorn.
The Clubhouse application provides a virtual place where people can chat, listen and join the chat with other Clubhouse user communities. Once you open the Clubhouse app there are several chat rooms on various topics and everyone is there.
Every time you listen to a chat session, users will find many people who appear and can be added as friends immediately. The more topics and people that are followed, the more frequent recommendations for events that match preferences appear.
When the chat session is over, the chat room will be completed by the moderator and closed automatically. However, Clubhouse users cannot save or record conversation sessions that are already in progress. Clubhouse also does not provide editing tools, sound effects, transition filters, and ad snippets in it. It is also said that this application cannot be monetized.
Uniquely, Clubhouse offers exclusivity, at least for now. You can only join when invited by other users. If invited, a link will be sent to an SMS directed to the sign up page for the Clubhouse application. Clubhouse users have just 2 invitations for others. Everyone can download, but they can’t join unless a friend invites us or lets us in.
As a result, invitations to join Clubhouse are also being traded in e-commerce, for example in China, as reported by The Guardian. This has become a problem in itself, because actually joining the Clubhouse is free.
Another thing is, Clubhouse is only available for iPhone users. This mean, this application is only for iOS, not Android. However, Clubhouse CEO, quoted by Business Today, said the application will eventually be open to everyone, including Android users.
Since going viral, Clubhouse has had a lot of controversy. Many users of the app are reported to have been bullied and harassed on their platforms. The company has been criticized for not having a content moderation policy or even security features such as blocks or facilities for reporting harassment. In addition, according to a security research report by the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), it was found that a certain vulnerability was found in the Clubhouse, which is vulnerable to Chinese government spies. The report added that a Shanghai-based company called Agora Inc provided the backend infrastructure to Clubhouse.
Clubhouse is also facing competition from Twitter, which is working on a similar product with a new feature called Spaces.