That was it for me. My interest was more than piqued: I was overwhelmed by FOMO. And it didn’t help that I started seeing Clubhouse events everywhere. I’m still not sure if it’s the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or if Clubhouse is actually hot stuff right now—surely a mix of both.
I skimmed through articles about Clubhouse and it soon dawned on me that I had to get an access as soon as possible. I first started asking around me but it was to no avail. I then called on Slack and Facebook communities revolving around product management (if you’re not in one of them, I highly recommend doing so). In less than an hour, someone from Designers Guild (a Facebook community I joined a few years ago while still in college) helped me out and sent me an invite. I was in.
What first struck me was the number of features available on the beta version. I was expecting less—way less. But I was too excited to keep exploring and went straight to the core feature: I entered a room and that was when I realized that Clubhouse would actually be the next big thing.
Let me explain.
Like most people my age (I’m in my late 20s), I have a keen interest in social networks. For me, my interest stems from my love for dialectics: I enjoy learning new ideas and getting my opinions challenged. That’s why my favorite hobby in college was debating, and why I am still judging debate tournaments today. But more to the point: I always felt like most social networks failed at truly connecting people.
I attribute this failure to three points:
- Written communication doesn’t convey emotional cues
- Asynchronous communication, in essence, doesn’t allow for dynamic readjustments
- Ironically, it’s rare/hard to actually interact “live” with strangers from all horizons on social networks
Clubhouse solves these three issues:
- It is voice-based
- The events are live
- It gathers anyone interested in a particular subject in the same “room” at the same time
I’d like to focus on the last point. Imagine you have something on your mind and want to have a conversation about it. You can’t tell your friends, because the subject matter doesn’t interest them, or they don’t know enough about it.
With Clubhouse, you could start a new conversation on the spot or schedule one for later. In doing so, anyone around the world interested in the same topic could potentially join in and you’d have a blast. Clubhouse allows you to dedicate a certain amount of your time to focus on a specific subject, just like you would plan coffee with a friend to talk about your new business venture. Assuming it’s not recorded, the conversation would just live in your memory and in those of the ones you interacted with. And, if all goes well, you would leave the conversation having learned something new—which is rarely the case on social media.
Undeniably, Clubhouse offers a lot of novel marketing opportunities for your business. That would require a dedicated post entirely. More on that soon.
Of course, like all social networks, Clubhouse has its drawbacks. But these are inherent to all social networks: questions will be asked about data privacy, misinformation and free speech—as they should.
Maybe we could open a room about that and talk it through?
N.B. I concede that I might be totally wrong about Clubhouse, so take my enthusiasm with a pinch of salt. After all, I thought Quibi would succeed. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I leave you with this tweet by Paul Graham:
