First time I heard about Clubhouse was when Ramelow mentioned that he plays Candycrush while being in a BLK Corona Schalte. Basically a glorified zoom call where Merkel tries to get the Ministerpräsidenten on board for the next anti Covid measures. A year ago Ramelow was already in den news since he didn’t get elected. Instead some hapless dude from the FDP felt it would be OK if he would form a government by getting tolerated by the right wing populist AfD.
Back to Clubhouse. Invite only. IOS only. 500 people per room only. No ability to record audio. Except via the analog loophole I would think. It is audio based, and audio still gets into our brains
via pressure waives. Which can be recorded since more than 150 years.
Do I care about CH? No. Do I like to join? Fuck no.
But Elon spoke there? Really. They even had 2 overflow rooms. A total audience of 1500 random people on the Internet? Well. OK, the people are not entirely random. Right now it is Silicon Valley heavy, then there is the press. Those who also stare at twitter and other news outlets. But Musk on CH is similar to Lee Iacocca using a CB radio.
Still not sure what CH differentiates from CB in the first place.
I wonder what the endgame is for something like Clubhouse. I don’t see it. If you talk, and a couple of hundred people can listen, what is it that is worth saying? Multi level marketing promotions and religious gatherings aside there is not anything in our culture that would benefit from the unique features of Clubhouse.
If you have something to communicate to a small(ish) audience, then you might as well record a youtube video. Where people can find it. Where you can have links, calls to action etc. And a picture along your words. You can prepare the message you have to all you like. Doing it live is not making it better in most cases.
Once the influencers all want to (and can) talk on Clubhouse there will be simply not enough people that care enough to listen. Sure many people have they mom who would chime up. But what if you happened to sired multiple influences? Sophies Choice all over again.
Think a Sahara filled with lots and lots of Stylites.
There are earnings calls and similar communications where Clubhouse could be used. Maybe if Clubhouse would have unique benefits over a phone number one can call, then it could be used here. There still would be the chicken and egg to get over though. If your simple and working call-in method gets you a more reliable audience, why should you venture into Clubhouse? Having a phone that you can dial into something is a given. Clubhouse membership not.
I personally can not imagine how Clubhouse could scale. One would need a large number of people who can talk in a way that it is worth listening live to. Yes, in theory, everybody could talk. But in reality there are only weird areas and clubs where this would make sense. The bottom feeders of the Internet will like it. Racists, Flatearthers and the like. But you can’t make money with those. Chat Roulette had content problems too.
Once CH wants to go wider, what kind of thing do they want to be associated with? I am tempted to hide the telegram icon on my phone. Not that I would use it in disgusting ways, but others don’t know that.
Clubhouse might look like a real world real estate based gathering place. After the ‘party’ is over and before those responsible for cleaning up arrived and did what they do. Not a very inviting place.
I will write in six months again here how CH is doing. My guess it will be a hot mess.
In two years somebody might bought it and/or less relevant than SNAP. Another communication concept based on a restriction. Or it will have quibied. Much as there are dog and human years, there are Internet and Media years: Andreesen and Horowitz are only 16 years younger than Katzenberg and Whitman.