Club House is an audio-based chat forum where users can start voice conversations on various topics and issues they are interested in, where anyone can come in and listen and participate in the conversations.
It has no chat function and you can only interact with other users by participating in conversations.
The app became popular in Silicon Valley in March 2020, when entrepreneurs Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth released the first beta version of the app to be able to pick out test users.
It was quickly liked by the users, who then mainly consisted of entrepreneurs and investors with large contact networks.
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Already in May, before Clubhouse was available to download in the App Store, investors went in with ten million dollars and today it is valued at one billion dollars.
At this time, it was aimed at various tech entrepreneurs and was used by celebrities like MC Hammer and Ashton Kutcher.
Slowly, the exclusive voice call app has become available to others and now Clubhouse wants to establish itself in other countries outside the United States.
Today, it is reported to have grown to two million users per week globally.
- Clubhouse has moved into an area where it is a bit empty.
Then I do not think that the Clubhouse we see today is the same Clubhouse that we will see in six months if it wants to keep users, says Björn Jeffrey, tech analyst at Svenska Dagbladet.
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We are working on being able to add people to the Clubhouse as soon as we can, but right now you need an invitation to be able to register
", you can read in the app's description.
It is possible to download the app now but it is not possible to use it until you receive an invitation from someone who already uses Clubhouse.
- They have created an exclusivity around the app.
It's a bit like restaurants holding queues outside the restaurant, you see the queue and think "it must be fun in there because there are so many people standing in line".
They have been good at using that, says Björn Jeffrey.
Moderation a challenge
In the App Store, you can read that Clubhouse is a "space for spontaneous and relaxed drop-in conversations" and it is possible to create chat rooms about basically anything.
But that it is possible to talk about just about anything is something that has been problematized.
- Moderation is a complicated problem for all social media platforms.
It has been difficult for Twitter to delete posts that are several hours old and at Clubhouse, all conversations take place in real time and then disappear.
Clubhouse will probably have an even harder time getting it right, says Björn Jeffrey.