What if you could use Instagram without the need to see? Imagine every photo, every video and every reel just became a simple audio message. How would it feel like to just listen and speak without the need to chat or anything like that? It would be kinda mesmerizing for some people like extroverts and it would be utterly deadly for introverts as they would find this app inconvenient to talk to. However, you can not only chat with your friends in plain audio messages but also hold meetings and whatnot. Would it be possible for such an app to exist? How would it feel instead of blatantly scrolling thousands of miles, listening to the same old songs repeated in every reel and the same old dance steps and the same old life hacks? Wouldn’t it be mysterious to not know what it is and what it would be without listening to the same?
You would have to listen to everything and scroll like that. Actually, such an app does exist. The app is called Clubhouse and you must have heard it in your surroundings if you are an Apple user, and why the app is the new buzz everywhere. Let us start with the history of the app first. The app is called Clubhouse and is one of the best startups to pop up in recent years. The app was launched late in 2019, precisely to say, in the fall of 2019 by two men with a new vision. Paul Davison and Rohan Seth founded this app in late 2019 and decided to have a go with everything related to the same. The app was first a random thought about making a social media platform but later as the question arose of how and what it should be this app came into being.
The idea behind the app was that the two men Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, wanted to start a social media startup and the goal was podcasts. We do have many apps right now on both the Apple store and the Play Store that hosts podcasts and everything. We also have podcasts in Spotify too, it’s just that you would be harassed with ads if you haven’t got Spotify premium. What’s more, the idea wasn’t unique to the internet but the way it was being presented to the public was. Surely podcasts are great and we would all listen to one or two of them but expressing your own views in between? Literally, talking to one and another on the same app without having to call or anything like that? Now, this was something unique to this.
The app was actually named Talkshow, in the beginning, considering the idea that it would be a show, an audio show where people could talk to each other, but it was later termed as Clubhouse because the number of people grew on the app. Now the app is called Clubhouse and it is in high demand in the market. In the beginning during its launch, just after the pandemic hit the world it was solely for those people that know about the app and some few outsiders. The app was launched only for the iOS version and there was no Android substitute available at that time. Although the app was a start-up with no such marketing strategies or funding companies behind their backs, the app grew considerably to this stage. We would discuss the same later on.
Let us first understand the motive behind the app and what the app is in detail. As mentioned before, the app has something that has never been done on the social media sites before. The app has offered people a chance to have a voice of their own on the internet and talk to each other, tell stories and meet new people all around the world. If you think about this for some time, you would realize that this is something that is really unique. Most of us regularly use social media but haven’t we stopped talking? Our generation is the last generation that has parents who won’t understand what text messages are. As we grow older and enter the later stages of life, we won’t be those types of old people that don’t know how to hold a phone or what WhatsApp is. We would know everything and this would be something that the world would see in the next few decades.
And we would be chained to texting and not speaking. Remember the last time you physically talked over the phone concerning a simple chit chat like how are you doing or something like that? No? Me neither. We rarely talk to each other and everything has just been limited by a text message. This was exactly the idea behind the app. Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to listen to the voice of any person rather than reading long blocks of simple texts? How about stories? We do love to read and we do have books and then they are changed into movies but if movies would contain everything, wouldn’t a movie be more beautiful than the book itself? The voicing of a certain story and the art of storytelling and listening to people and voicing our concerns, we are all forgetting the thrill of this.Â
The feeling you are getting right now by reading this news is exactly what the developers wanted their users to feel. Not just stare through long blocks of texts but rather listen and acknowledge what the person is trying to convey. Now onto the features of the app, they are quite unique and they are beautifully designed to accommodate every aspect of the idea behind the creation of Clubhouse. Let’s start with the concept of a room. The room is a place where you can talk to anyone in this world. And by anyone, I mean anyone. But you can even limit yourself to just the people and you want. And there you have it. Your perfect audio conference room. Thus, there are two types of rooms available, such as the open room where anyone with the link can join and the social room where only those you want to talk to can join.
It would be a pretty fun way to talk to your friends and have a private audio session with them. There are even clubs and payments and houses where you can join in and have a lot more fun on the app. Download Clubhouse to make sure to get everything. And if you are wondering about the fact that you have an android phone then again you don’t have to worry about this because in May of 2021, the beta version for Android has been launched and even android users can use the same app and join onto the same platform. So now you don’t need to worry about those friends that do not own an iPhone. Coming to the invite part, there has been a lot going on in the developing community that has led to a rise in the number of users. Initially, the app was launched for only those people who have an invite link for the same.
Those with the link could join the app and enter the rooms while those without were left with nothing. This escalated so much that a single invite link was worth 400 dollars on eBay. But it would be disheartening to know that the app has actually started accepting everyone now and anyone that has the app can download the same. The reason behind why the app had a limited number of users is because they didn’t have enough employees to handle the incoming traffic. Now, the app has seen so many downloads that the average number of active users per week is about 8.6 million. The traffic has increased so much that since its start it just had 300 active users. The app is fairly popular among teenagers and those who wanted something other than scrolling mindlessly.
To add on to this, many influential people such as Elon Musk himself hosted rooms on the app and conducted general meetings where he had an informal chat with the public. Even Mark Zuckerberg was seen in the app hosting rooms. This was one of the reasons for its popularity and why the app is growing so much. To think that Twitter itself wanted to buy the app is also something that cannot be overlooked. It hasn’t been a year now and yet the app has had so many active users per week that it has become difficult for the employees to handle. Thus, Twitter wanted to buy the app themselves seeing its potential and the growth that can happen. But, the developers of this app believed in the project and rejected the offer. Our sources have confirmed that Twitter was disheartened by this rejection and the social media giant has created an app called Space which mimics the original Clubhouse. This is enough evidence that the app would one day reach the popularity and growth that Instagram, Facebook or Twitter has.
