“Club House” … what is the secret of this uproar?

Before talking about the birth of the “Clubhouse” application, it is necessary to mention the factors of excitement that surround it. The app was able, in a smart way, to take advantage of the closure measures around the world due to the Corona pandemic, to very quickly create a sort of aura around it. For example, it is exclusively present on the Apple App Store, and even if you have a smart phone or tablet for the same company, you still need an invitation from one of the users in order to be able to access to this “hidden island.” It’s more of a “secret club,” accessible only if you’re lucky and know one of that club’s members in the basement! All of these factors make the app desirable before they even know what it is or how it works, as “Android” folks eagerly wait to release it with a version that works on their phones.

Last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked the official Kremlin account, via a tweet from his Twitter account, if the Russian president wanted to join him in a conversation on the “Clubhouse” app. “Would you like to join me in chatting at the Clubhouse?” He said. Then he followed that up with a tweet in Russian which translated as: “It is a great honor to speak to you.”

.@KremlinRussia_E Would you like to join me for a conversation about Clubhouse?

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2021

This tweet was enough to ignite the “Clubhouse” platform, the number of users increasing considerably.

How does the app work?
“Clubhouse” is an application for voice chat only. It’s a mix of podcasts and talk shows, in addition to a touch of traditional TV talk shows. But what is interesting here is that he was able to transfer the spirit of the discussions that take place around the dining table, or when a group of young men meet in the street to talk about a problem. , to the programming lines that were able to make this new platform exciting. After entering the app, a discussion board group appears to the user (this form of virtual groups is not new, and internet users witnessed it in the early days in the same way through apps such as “PalTalk” and many others). The user can also create their own room, which comes in three forms: public which anyone can access, or limited to the user’s friends in their account, or closed to access via an invitation from the same user only. .
After entering one of these rooms, which can accommodate up to 5,000 people, the user will find two fields in front of him: the first includes the names of the speakers, which are usually few in number, while the second list includes a group of discussion listeners. . The user can press a button in the shape of a raised hand, to request to speak or ask a question. If the user moderating the dialogue accepts, the user will be elevated from the Listener tab to the Speaker tab in order to say what they have. He can also leave the session by clicking a button.

The reasons for the rapid rise
Clubhouse was launched in April of last year by Alpha Exploration and its founders Paul Davidson and Rohn Seth. The app has benefited from the reality of the Corona pandemic, the many questions about it and a very important political moment, as the internet and social media platforms have increasingly clamped down on opinions that contradict their standards. “Community”, as was evident in the events that accompanied the year of the presidential elections in the United States, noting that the application is not far from the atmosphere of Silicon Valley, but the virtual arena required the entry of a new player, providing a different experience than “Twitter” and “Facebook”. This is how Clubhouse went from an app that had only a few thousand users, mostly Silicon Valley techs and billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckorberg, to a platform with cash. millions of users. Today they talk about everything; From the colonization of Mars to the world of sports, politics and art, when its market value is estimated at around a billion dollars.

What also sets the Club House apart is that the conversations that come on stage are closer to the people than the TV talk shows, which are sometimes motivated or directed to convey a team or a team’s point of view. specific party. It reflects the issues and concerns, and even the concerns of people in a society, better than any medium. It also reinforces the idea that the individual himself is seeking the truth or answering his personal questions. It can be said here that the “Club House” has become a need that is difficult to do without, and it is a fatal blow to TV talk shows that could have protected themselves after the emergence of “YouTube”, “Twitter “and” Facebook “before, but they are now directly targeted.

Invitations for 20 thousand dollars … and “Twitter” and “Instagram” are in demand!
“Club House” is currently only available on the “iOS” system, but the company has promised in a statement that it is working on a version that will soon run on the “Android” operating system. But today’s digital world can’t wait, and when a new idea emerges, incomplete or available to all users, it goes without saying that the tech giants come with all their preferences and market size. to create a better alternative that is accessible to all. This is already happening. Last week, Twitter launched a competing voice chat platform for the “Club House” app, called “Spice”, which works exclusively on phones with the “Android” operating system. “Spices” is similar in functionality to the “Clubhouse” audio application. According to a tweet from Spices, users will soon be able to create their own rooms. The “Instagram” app also announced that it is about to launch a service similar to “Clubhouse”, without specifying when it will be released or how it will be used.
The task of inviting the user to join remains problematic. In this regard, the Clubhouse website says: The app will be open to a wider audience, or everyone, at the appropriate time. And as some may find patience to be a difficult task, the New York Times reported that it was up to some users to purchase invitations to join the platform on eBay, which ranged in value from $ 30 to $ 20,000. !