Hello friends, have you seen the buzz surrounding another social media platform, Clubhouse? Have you been wondering what the hype is about? At Design Land NYC, we have raised similar questions, and have eventually enjoyed using Clubhouse. We are here to reveal everything we know about this app! 

What is Clubhouse? 

Clubhouse is an audio-based social media app, where users can listen into other users’ (moderators) phone conversations. Users can jump from one room to another, choose conversations by topic, and can even ask to participate in the moderator’s audio chat. The app allows people everywhere to talk about ideas, meet different people from around the world and listen into interesting conversations, and each room has a current limit of 5,000 users per Clubhouse room. In many ways, Clubhouse resembles an audio forum, as opposed to a podcast. You can listen into conversations, participate, follow other users and topics and receive suggestions for rooms that may suit your preferences. Once the conversations end, you cannot access them at a later time as the app does not keep record of the content. 

Clubhouse was first launched in March 2020, created by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. Only two months after its launch, the app was valued at $100 million while having only 1,500 users. In 2020, the app was comprised of a small circle of users, yet reached 2 million users in January 2021 to exponentially increase into the current high number of 6 million users. The app is now worth $1 billion. Clubhouse is currently only available to iOS users, with an Android version on its way and a website that links to the iOS app. 

How can you get a Clubhouse Invitation? 

To sign up for the app and begin checking out Clubhouse rooms, you will need to receive an invitation from an existing Clubhouse user. As a new user you will get two invites to send as you like, and you will earn more as you use the app. The only way to join the app so far is through an invitation! When you receive an invitation you can choose to sign up with your name and phone number, create a username, or through Twitter to transfer over your profile. The reason for this invite-only system is that Clubhouse is building a reputation and desirability based on exclusivity and limited access. However, the app does plan to extend to the general public with no current update as to when that will happen. 

Who is on Clubhouse? 

Many celebrities and influencers such as Kevin Hart, Oprah, Chris Rock, Drake, and Tiffany Haddish are known to have been periodically using the app, among whom, Tiffany Haddish was the first user to reach 1 million followers on Clubhouse. It seems that people are really interested in what celebrities and influencers have to say and enjoy being a temporary wallflower on these seemingly exclusive conversations. 

The most recent celebrity that brought Clubhouse at the forefront of public attention and broke the Clubhouse 5,000 user limit, was the Tesla and SpaceX founder, Elon Musk. In January 31, Musk created a room and utilized the platform to talk about space travel, colonies on Mars, crypto, artificial intelligence and Covd-19 vaccines to his audience. Later in the conversation, Musk was joined by Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood and they analyzed the recent events on the Wall Street bets.

While the app does not record or store any of the audio content, users listening into the conversation are free to do whatever they like with the audio. Elon Musk’s conversation on Clubhouse was recorded and streamed online soon enough, which makes us think that while the app intends to keep these conversations exclusive and semi-private, there will always be the chance of users storing the audio somewhere else on the internet. 

If you have ever wanted to listen into people’s conversations, and conduct this in an ethical and acceptable way, then Clubhouse may be just the right app for you! Otherwise, tell us why you would use this app and what are your thoughts on Clubhouse? Will this platform be the next big social media phenomena?

As for Design Land NYC, we are finding topics such as Shopify integration, ecommerce and social media marketing to be of high interest and we are loving the access to founders that have built billion dollar brands and ecommerce and we are very inspired to hear them speak directly on the chat rooms at Clubhouse!

XOXO Lori / Design Land NYC