Written by Yiling
The Clubhouse is undoubtedly an app that attracted the most attention in 2020. It is an audio-only social media where everyone can talk about their ideas and views in the themed chatroom. Back then, everyone talked about it, and it seemed like only cool kids were using it. In this post, I’d like to look back at the growth journey of the Clubhouse and share my own experience of using this app.
The main reason the Clubhouse suddenly took the world by storm is the unique, exclusive launch strategy. The app launched with a few hundred initial users, and each user could only invite 2 friends to this app, and every new user was given their own 2 invitations that they could share with contacts and so on. These initial users are primarily celebrities and techies, which naturally promoted the video-only concept and made the app grab the headline. When I first received an invitation from my friend and finally got a chance to be “one of these cool kids,” I was excited. Since there are many entrepreneurs, influencers, superstars, and KOLs in this community, I might get to talk to them in the same chatroom. The first time I entered a chatroom was pretty nerve-wracking because I knew people were in the middle of the conversation, and I was afraid I might interrupt them. After a few minutes of hesitation, I still entered it, and I realized only 2 or 3 people were under the spotlight, and most of the members were the audience in this case. So, I was relieved and tried to understand what they were talking about, but It was tough to figure out as it was in the middle of the chat, and I didn’t have any references to refer to the context. After about 20 minutes of listening, I lost my patience and left the chatroom.
I don’t think my experience is the only case, as nowadays most of my friends have quitted the Clubhouse. It psychologically proved that synchronous and lengthy content is hard to catch people’s attention. However, the Clubhouse, as a social media, attention is everything. (TikTok, for example, fatally captures people’s attention) Also, the endless conversation on Clubhouse makes me suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), and at the same time, I barely get high-quality information.
As I presented, I think the strategies of Clubhouse may need to change, and the user experiences need to improve so that it can be called the competitor of Instagram.