Did you forget the Club House? Well, you are not alone. The app that allows you to create audio-only chat rooms had its heyday during the pandemic. ClubHouse is now somewhat abandoned. But its creator is somehow trying to revive the appeal of the app with new features.
Exponential growth…
Launched in March 2020, ClubHouse enjoyed a perfect release date with the start of the first lockdown ever. Locked up at home, Internet users took advantage of the application to organize conversations between friends or with strangers.
Even celebrities had quickly gotten used to the game. Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey, in particular, had turned the platform upside down to discuss with their audiences. ClubHouse quickly became a trend on social networks, attracting tens of millions of users in just a few months. A year after its launch, the American company was even valued at $4 billion.
…quickly slowed down by his approach
ClubHouse suffered from several flaws, however, the biggest one was its availability on mobile devices. In fact, only people with an iPhone could use the app in its early days. A brake when you know that more than 70% of the phones in the world run on Android.
The other issue was that audio chats were only accessible by invitation with a waiting list. This process was justified by the desire of the creators of ClubHouse to “slow the growth of registrations while building a team and strengthening the infrastructure”.
ClubHouse later dropped this functionality and opened up access to its app to all smartphone users. But it was already late, the lack of confidence had taken place and Internet users had returned to their usual applications. But the application and especially its principle had caught the attention of the largest social networks. Twitter notably launched its “Spaces” feature, which still allows users to chat today.
New functionalities to recover the public
Today, ClubHouse is trying to revive itself with options more or less similar to those that classic social networks can offer. The app now offers a classic chat system where more timid users can engage in conversations without the pressure of public speaking.
But the most recent novelty concerns the size of the chat rooms. Paul Davison, head of ClubHouse, notably announced that the app will now focus on more intimate conversations.
A new feature called “Houses” will allow users to create private clubs, again with an invitation system. “To continue to grow the business, Clubhouse cannot just become a sprawling community, but a network of smaller groups,” said Paul Davison at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
ClubHouse, shelter during the war in Ukraine
Despite its lower user count than in the old days, the app still boasts almost 10 million active users. Above all, ClubHouse knew how to take advantage of the war in Ukraine to win over a new audience. With the closure of many traditional communication networks, Russian and Ukrainian Internet users met on ClubHouse chat channels.
A way to discuss between allies in a more discreet way. ClubHouse, however, had to set up a system of protected profiles. The aim was, in particular, to prevent users, particularly Russians, from being retaliated against when they reported acts of war, but also to protect Ukrainian-to-Ukrainian conversations, sometimes overheard by pro-war Russians.
After being separated from a large part of its teams last summer, ClubHouse now has around a hundred employees. Layoffs that respond to the drop in attendance of the application but that, according to the director of ClubHouse, will simply allow the creation of a more cohesive and intimate team. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to also strengthen ties with its users.
Source: BFM TV
