What’s the hype with Clubhouse?

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By: Joshua Tecson 
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Clubhouse is another social app for iPhone but with a creative twist. Think of it as an exclusive zoom, podcast, Tedtalk combined. The app has a bunch of individual rooms where you can listen in on conversation regarding anything from Life, Sports, and Business. The hype with Clubhouse is that it is one giant exclusive conversation, where only the select few can join in. The app has a two-part exclusivity aspect with it being invite-only and being only for iPhone users. Since this app is invite-only, it makes it harder for people to join. Having the app as invite-only could provide both positives and negatives. Let us talk about the negatives about the app being invite-only. The first negative is that it limits the number of users thus keeping your user count to a small percentage. The second negative is that people who do have the invites are selling them at ridiculous prices, we see people spend as high as $200 to get access to the app. Let us now talk about the positives about it being invite-only. The first positive is the fact that it is exclusive, everyone wants to feel exclusive as they get that warm fuzzy feeling inside. The second positive is that everyone who is a user is passionate and serious with whatever conversation they are listening too. The downside to other listening platforms is that its hard for people to interact with one another. Clubhouse does an excellent job at separating casual listeners to diehard listeners of any subject. By having only serious listeners, it makes it easier to market yourself and potentially find business.  

Shall we now talk about the app itself? Clubhouse is pretty user friendly to where anyone can pick it up and get the hang of it. As a user you can either join in and listen to a conversation or even host a conversation yourself. The app also allows multiple main speakers in each room, this is where the feeling of it being a podcast comes into play. As I mentioned this app has a zoom like feel to where if you had a question you can use a raised hand feature to get called on, then you can talk and everyone can hear you out. The one big downside to the overall app is the abundance of recording options. This is a big con as a lot of users like to relisten to conversations they were really interested in. In addition, sometimes is hard for listeners to keep up with a conversation and having a playback option would increase the understandings for any users. Let’s highlight the fact that this app is also iPhone ONLY, being exclusive is one thing that makes sense but having it only with one platform puts them in a giant disadvantage. Tech markets in other countries prefer android devices (Samsung). Getting into the android market is a must before a different app developer decides to use this app as a stepping stone. Clubhouse could then see a spike in interest within the foreign markets.
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An aspect that contributes to the hype of this app was the timing of its release. This app came out in April 2020, what was happening around the world? Covid-19 prevented people from going to conferences to listen to their favorite speakers. Clubhouse was a little app that helped brought likeminded people together. It made listening to public speakers more accessible yet exclusive. The overall hype of this app is the exclusivity and how people in the industry are cosigning this app. We see big names like Elon Musk mentioning this app. This app so much potential to dominate its target market as it has a good mix of exclusivity and diversity.