I received an invite for the hot new social media platform Clubhouse from fellow tech analyst Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang). Currently, the platform is by invitation only. If you are from the generation that did party lines, it’s a take on that format.
I don’t know what to think of it yet as a content creator. I enjoy the frictionless experience of entering and leaving a “room.” The timeline is relatively simple. There’s a flat list of rooms with topics. One of the first rooms I entered was a discussion amongst videographers.
There the concept of the stage. If you are familiar with webinars, it’s the same delegate concept. Delegates are allowed to speaks while audience members have limited to no interaction in the current iteration. So, it’s a few-to-many platform. I found the content informative but I was frustrated by the inability to talk back or even give feedback to the delegates on the stage.
The conversations are ephemeral. This means unless you’ve decided to record a room via some type of audio hijack, you better take great notes. I’m not a great note-taker.
I’m intrigued by the platform. It’s an interesting alternative to Discord which I’ve never really gotten the hang of. It’s also a relief from constantly being on with video conferencing. However, the lack of engagement with stage members has me pausing. I’d like to see the ability to create breakout rooms so audience members can have sidebars. I’m also concerned about the safety tools from trolls and such.
I’ll leave you with this link to an article on O of all places. It’s a couple of months old.
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a34376747/what-is-clubhouse-social-media-app/