That was my thought, I was wondering if it did ANYTHING that isn't already in Mumble/Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Discord-- about the only thing I can come up with is that it's probably easier to set up for non-technical users (the one place Mumble/TS/Vent fall apart at) but even there I don't think Discord loses out on that.
It was a little more like that before, say, summer 2020. Lots and lots of people have been onboarding in the last couple months, I assume because of the VC money and pressure to expand. At this time, it's less like you describe and more like "influencers" cannibalizing each other with constant rooms with a thousand or two people listening on "the success mindset" or "how to build a brand identity." I don't really log in anymore.
As the article mentions, it's not limited to Silicon Valley types, but even if it were I don't know if there's really a "just" about Davos in your living room. A direct line to the thoughts of top Silicon Valley people is a pretty powerful pitch, no?
Books yes, youtube no, except the occasional funny animal/baby video with my wife. Even books need to meet an expected quality threshold before I elect to dedicate tens of hours of my attention, and I am willing to grant it because the thousands of hours or years worth of thought put into a book are often worth the brain space consumption trade-off. I try to be very selective in the content I consume, with exceptions for pure entertainment when I need it.
And that’s what I find compelling about it. I’ve never been to Davos or worked in Silicon Valley, yet I felt like I was in that environment. I don’t expect it will last. But it felt nice.
I would like a “party line” style app where moderators let people talk. Would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately normal people aren’t allowed into clubhouse (yet?) and I don’t give a shit enough to hassle someone for an invite code. But would be fun to login to a channel and be a blow hard.
I listened to a podcast recently (Blocked and Reported) where they were critiquing how journalists have been advocating for fact checkers in every single clubhouse room. An app like this isn’t news that needs to be fact checked - it’s a bunch of strangers yammering on and talking out of their ass like you do at a bar. Some people are way too uptight.
> Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible. That, though, is the case for all user-generated content. The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation that is interesting to them. This is the other area where podcasts miss the mark: it is amazing to have so much choice, but all too often that choice is paralyzing; sometimes — a lot of times! — users just want to scroll their Twitter feed instead of reading a long blog post, or click through Stories or swipe TikToks, and Clubhouse is poised to provide the same mindless escapism for background audio.
This seems to be a good nutshell of Clubhouse and it's popularity.
> The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation that is interesting to them.
I think Netflix and YouTube have proven how hard this is. Watch a couple of the wrong shows and you a doomed forever it seems. It's a bit like Echo Chambers too. [0]
Youtube is astonishingly bad. I watched a Jordan Peterson talk just to see what all the fuss is about and now there's at least a clip of him in damn near every video Youtube recommends. And this is despite me actually watching aerospace related videos almost exclusively.
if you are logged in, you can go to your watch history and delete the entry for it, that does something to get it out of the algorithm. But yes, YT really likes to latch onto you watching a single thing once.
I almost exclusively pay attention to updates from creators I've subscribed to. I'm more sure that YT will eventually remove subscriptions in an effort to college TikTok than I am that the sun will come up tomorrow.
I wonder if the algorithm has not detected that somehow people watching Jordan Peterson were spending more time watching Youtube, and so it is gently nudging you into that direction.
That's for sure what's happening. On a personal level it's extremely annoying because a machine is trying to manipulate my behavior for its own benefit.
It is what it is. That same recommendation engine does wonders for music.
For controversial stuff etc, it's better to watch it in incognito. And really any topic that you're not actually interested in. I watched a few minecraft videos to figure out a redstone thing I was working on, and my recommendations were flooded with garbage minecraft videos.
I think it is likely an attempt to beat the echo chamber. If your interests are niche, the only ways to avoid showing content that is, well, cliched is to latch on to the one offs and show a small percentage of those, or show truly random content. The former likely gets much better results.
Honestly at this point while logged in I only watch videos about scientific and technical subjects. Anything else I go incognito so it won't mess up my recommendations.
I have the impression that the algorithm sees that you watched something a little more popular in general and latches into that trying to bring you to a larger more generic cluster. Same thing happens with music, for me.
What is maddening is that Netflix when it was just DVDs it was IMO it was pretty amazing discovery wise. I felt like the users folks posting reviews were amazing at suggesting movies / giving you a good feel for the film. But maybe it was because those folks didn't have a background motivation to push, like advertising dollars or etc.
Or maybe it was an eternal September problem or just the fact that DVDs meant there was more content that could be found, but I've not found anything as good as the old school Netflix community reviews.
Meanwhile amazon is convinced I'm a woman and won't leave me alone about that ... Google is convinced I love a college football team that is in fact a rival because I google something about them once in a blue moon .... Trump was really interested in me filling out a happy birthday card for his wife (nope, that's creepy)... and they stand to make money on that, a still get it wrong.
I used to watch quite a few older and newer movies when it was a DVD service. Now, I just get all of their branded content shoved down my throat with little if any options beyond that. Search is inconsistent at best.
I've been thinking about canceling my subscription for a while now as I feel the value of Netflix just isn't there any more.
To me, the value of these streaming services are probably 1/3 their actual price, so like many I split the account with a half dozen people. It's gotten to the point where the scale is shifting further and further, and I'm streaming content gratis using bittorrent rather than the actual platform that I have an account with because sometimes it's easier and faster to get straight to the content without being bombarded. Not to mention the latest Hulu dark pattern, where something will be labelled as "available on Hulu," then you go and look and it's only available on the Hulu plan that costs as much as your old cable bill.
Have they removed films from the DVD side of the business?
I used it until a few years ago, it seemed the same as ever back then. Now we just have more options through various services for streaming, vs waiting on DVD.
It’s like every single social network pitch since Facebook succeeded. Take existing form of content (podcasts), tweak it a little, make it easier to produce and let almighty algorithms generate billions for you.
> Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio-chat social networking app launched in 2020 by software developers Alpha Exploration Co. As of December 2020, it was valued at nearly $100 million. On January 21, 2021, the valuation hit one billion US dollars.[1]
So a bunch of party lines? Doesn't seem that worth getting excited about, certainly doesn't seem worth a billion dollars when Discord basically does the same thing already.
”Further, SIO has determined that a user’s unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plaintext, and Agora would likely have access to users’ raw audio, potentially providing access to the Chinese government.”
I'm curious as to how this happens - are app comms not SSL ?
I never gave it much thought but I assumed that, like the adoption of SSL everywhere for websites, all apps spoke only SSL ... does the app store not enforce this ?
It's weird this article talks so much about podcasts but doesn't mention Patreon. It's a major, often primary, source of revenue for the most interesting podcasts I listen to.
I find pure audio to be the least appealing format to absorb information from. It's simultaneously distracting yet non-engaging. If I want to learn something new, print or video work best for me. Print if the concept is information based. Video if it's technique based.
Just like I don't listen to podcasts, I can't imagine sitting around listening to people talk about things with no visuals. I'm not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if I wanted to.
Audio has the advantage that you can listen while walking, working out, or cleaning up the kitchen. Since I got kids it’s the only way I manage to consume any literature.
I don’t see the appeal of yet another anti-social media app. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but I’m thinking even if I was a lonely cat lady/guy I’d not need yet another crappy app on top of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat or TikTok to not feel like a lonely depressed human. If I really need to take my mind off my lonely miserable life then I can already listen to a million podcasts or literally turn myself into a binge watching zombie staring at Netflix all day so I don’t have to realise what a fucking loser I am that I need an app to meet and talk to random people. Even if I was that person, I’d probably lose interest in Clubhouse as soon as the pandemic is over and I can see my shrink again.
It’s not a rant. Clubhouse is a platform for wannabes and losers who like to listen to wannabes. My brutal honesty is not a rant, just just an unfiltered summary of Clubhouse and I don’t see the appeal to people who have a real social life.
My wife is on it sometimes, she goes on groups with other people and converses about various topics. It seems quite social to me, and she has an extensive ”real” social life, too. I think your attempt to boil down the essence of the app to your ”summary” is flawed.
Also, just because something is ”brutal honesty” doesn’t mean it isn’t also a rant, nor that it’s the truth.
Didn't the people who were on Facebook at the time say this about Twitter that it was for 'losers' and yet here we are.
But I agree too. There's nothing special about Clubhouse expect that it is super-hyped by the VCs, media and the techies as the next big thing and I'm not convinced.
> Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible. That, though, is the case for all user-generated content.
My perception is that Clubhouse is that it's yet-another amplifier for the group of folks who already have a large following and are able to produce quality content. Listening to anything long-form and live risks being a huge waste of time. Audiences are willing to listen to well-known people because it has a higher chance of being interesting at all.
Unfortunately, the feedback I've heard is that the meetings hosted by the rest of the not-so well-known community have been generally terrible. I think people underestimate power of async communication and how it powers discoverability. There's too much noise out there already and very little time to filter it out to discover new content. Especially when the content is only produced live. Growing a YouTube/Podcast audience and growing a Clubhouse audience are going to be very different challenges.
I'm also unconvinced that this is a winner-take-all space. My understanding is that the technology moat here is very narrow compared to what it takes to run YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've already seen several interesting hacks put together by individuals with their own twist to this space.
That said, I'd really like to see the community stop claiming that "Clubhouse will be bigger than X platform!" such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
I think another important point being missed is how hard it is to create compelling improvised content. Youtube and Tiktok are amateur productions but the successful creators are still writing and editing. Conversations are going to meander and the absolute worst offense possible for this kind of medium is being boring.
I agree with you, and at the same time, there will still be some people who are newcomers but adopted clubhouse at the right time and will become stars because of it. Maybe they weren't even newcomers, just good at what they do.
So while looking at it from a large numbers angle, yes, the power law applies and winners take all, digging into individual level stories, there will be people who will rise up thanks to the new app.
Not sure what that means, but I do still think there are opportunities here.
I don’t think they have their filtering right at the moment, and they’ll have to find a sweet spot before everyone turns off notifications for good. I’m following Kimdotcom who is an interesting person, but whenever he joins in on something, I’m notified. I like to hear what he has to say, but not every bloody time, especially not at 3am when it’s a German-only speaking club!
Wow, that's discouraging. I thought the barrier to entry would mean better content across the board. But, I suppose that's the difference between a falsely erected barrier to make it seem more special and exclusive, and technical barriers to entry which filter out poor quality content naturally. If "anyone" can create content, most of it will be garbage, and the big names will get further amplified.
Looking at well-funded but ultimately unsuccessful competition in other spaces - Microsoft's Mixer (Twitch) and Google Plus (Facebook) to name two, though there are many others - it's not about the technology moat for consumer-oriented Internet companies, it's about what the technology enables. I've had the ability to have a multi-person phone call (party line of yore) since before the Internet, but oversimplifying what Clubhouse does as a modern implementation of that specific technology belies a belief in Internet company success that it's about having impossible-to-replicate underlying technology and being the only company to offer a thing.
The most validating thing as an entrepreneur is for there to be competition, because it means someone else recognized that you're right - there's a market and a product that can fit that market, and that money can be made off of it.
I gave clubhouse a go and found it super boring. Lots of self-important people talking about why they're important.
It feels like the reason I no longer listen to live radio. Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?
Same here, gave it a try and it's pretty much just a bubble builder for celebrities, not much else.
What I really don't understand is people trying to build a connection to podcasts? Why? Just because it's audio too?
The reason I enjoy podcasts is that I get to enjoy specific topics (or field specific news) from a list of sources I curate myself. I have show notes, know roughly what I get into with an episode, and get to pause and rewind, and that is just a part of it.
I'm not sure that's a universal experience. One of the most popular podcasts is Joe Rogan's, where each episode is just him talking to a random guest about a random thing, and that kind of show seems like it'd translate pretty straightforwardly to Clubhouse. I can't say I've ever wanted to rewind Rogan or follow along with show notes.
Yes, people are fallible, but getting them to talk out loud instead of expressing themselves with trolling or promotions is a good start to build some understanding and empathy for the other side.
That right there is one reason why I've never even tried it. I refuse to use app-only networks. Give me a web site that I can use from anywhere. Let me control what content my device downloads. There's no fucking way I'm buying into an app-only future.
I think that's a given because it's still invite only and has a very specific demographic creating content. Once it's open it could change dramatically. Or not. I don't know.
>> I think that's a given because it's still invite only and has a very specific demographic creating content.
Agreed.
Same thing happened with Ello ( https://ello.co/ ). Started out as invite only, which appealed to a certain group of people. Then the shine wore off and most users went back to FB and Twitter. Then it rebranded itself as a social media platform for creatives where it seems to have found a solid audience.
I agree with you that it's mostly not good. However, I wandered into a conversation with a bunch of DC journalists late at night and they were openly gossiping (probably all slightly inebriated) and saying things that almost assuredly were supposed to be off-the-record. It was fascinating and eye-opening as well as very entertaining.
The attraction of CH is exactly this: getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear. When it first started more of these types of conversations were happening and it did feel like you were part of the "in group" getting to hear things that ordinary people weren't privy to.
Making secrets explicit as a business model is not sustainable though. As more and more people file into the app creators are going be less and less explicit and all that will be left is the banal and boring (which may be enough actually, as the app is still addicting if you're a lurker).
Here's my prediction: CH is here to stay, but it will hit a ceiling. Additionally some people on the app are clearly playing with fire and we will likely see someone important get into trouble on the app and that will be the end of the (already dying) cool factor of the app.
> getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear
Feels like a side effect from being new and artifically limited via invites and I doubt that aspect will be kept very long. Same with people praising how friendly the discourse is supposed to be.
I know yesterday, there was a media guy who tried to do a hit job on some youtuber based on a clubhouse, and the entire chat had to come to his defense on twitter call the guy out as a liar. I imagine this will become increasingly common and will really kill the "authenticity" it offers.
The question is why would you gossip on CH? My guess is that there is some excitement to 'getting caught' or just more generally doing it in public. It's like the equivalent of having a private conversation in a bar or coffee shop. Because of COVID, people turn to CH to replicate this experience. After COVID, I suspect this app will die out.
That sounds like it would've applied to Twitter until "A tier people" joined the platform, got their blue checkmarks and became the reason Twitter hit critical mass.
I just don’t see how Clubhouse scales. I can see how compelling it is to actively participate in a small-scale chat with interesting people. But once a room reaches the level where only a few people can talk I’m basically listening to a poorly produced podcast that must be listened to live rather than at my convenience. …I don’t get the appeal.
Yes, Clubhouse feels like the perfect trap for the VC/PM class. It is a product that is extremely appealing to the them, but for which probability of widespread adoption seems low. And, of course, that group of people is one of the loudest on social media, so anyone within a few degrees of separation from them will "hear" them singing Clubhouse's praises.
I've never used Clubhouse, but to play Devil's advocate this is what people said about Facebook in its very early days. A product that appeals to Ivy League kids goofing around on each other's walls and showing off their favorite books. Why would that ever gain widespread adoption.
I think the lesson is that the impulse to imitate high-status people is very strong. Even when the behavior has no intrinsic value to the average Joe. If a social network gains a reputation for where SV entrepreneurs or "thought leaders" or Harvard heiresses hang out, then many people will flock to it regardless of what the actual experience is like. When Facebook opened up to a new campus, students would sign up en masse without even realizing what the product was.
VCs and entrepreneurs have been trying to replicate the FB/Harvard/private rollout thing since FB did it. I can't think of any other cases where it worked though. Very much a cargo cult decision.
This is a very insightful point. There is already a culture meming the imaginary April rooms where the "rich and powerful" gather to do insider-deals. You see this with all the get-rich-quick rooms, "thought-leader TedX" rooms, and "insightful conversation about social issues" rooms. It's a big pretend-land where everyone can partake what they imagine the "upper-crust" talks about. Someone made a point of people showing up at Soho house in 2020 (after it has "sold out") wearing designer clothes they got at the outlet, not knowing it sends a different signal. The truth is ... the only "consequential" people that frequent clubhouse are there to promote a very specific agenda, using the resident population as fodder to their cause. It's a stark microcosm of the inequalities in this society, and how consumer culture does not address the inquality, but rather just veil it in ignorance.
I think it was @default_friend on Twitter who made that point about Soho house[1]. I found the overall thread[2] to really help me understand the status dynamics of CH, reminding me of the Status as a Service essay[3] by Eugene Wei.
I don't think Facebook was ever a "perfect trap for the VC/PM class". Quora was, though - from the outside, Clubhouse really reminds me of the early days of Quora, with a nucleus of densely connected Silicon Valley elite drawing in a crowd of early adopters.
Quora ended up being like if Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn had a baby. I expect Clubhouse to go in a similar direction.
I am a new user but I hope they don’t start charging for listening in, there is much value by experts who are not there for promotional reasons but rather for intellectual discussions: ex: tech talks, medtech, AI.
Their target demographic seems more like conferences or university lectures with active participation, where education is the primary goal. I used to think that this might go away after covid, but after examination, the social utility is of tremendous value. I am usually against all social media (deleted most), which I think corrodes society, but clubhouse seems to be onto something.
Some controversial topics that could not have been discussed in person can be started here (and across the globe), expanding understanding on both sides: ex: politics, gender discrimination, Taiwan vs. China, etc.
There are also some funny/serious ones, for example “Attractive women explain things to tech bros” started as a joke but evolved into an advice place.
Yes, with every content platform you will inevitably have the quality issue, but I their content filtering can improve over time
>Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?
To be fair there's still good radio out there and not even just on the internet. The really commercial stuff on most of the FM band is tedious but personally I really love people who are passionate about music play me things I might not have heard before. Things like BBC Radio Six Music and the former offshore pirate Radio Caroline are both pretty good in this regard.
A good radio DJ can create a far more personal and human experience than just waiting for Spotify's algorithm to give you something vaguely related.
Yes. There is good stuff out there. I often go for live radio as a medium of discovery but within some well defined boundaries. I might listen to classical music or a jazz station and discover new artists or new interpretations within a genre that I already like. I might listen to a some talkshows in the hope that I might discover something interesting that was outside of my radar.
I am curious to try it (android user so I have to wait) but I worry that it will have a steep curve into mass market banality. The idea of hearing / participating in an unscripted chat with a small close knit group sounds cool. But as soon as lots of people are paying attention, things will get scripted, content will get anodyne enough to avoid offending anyone and so will be uninteresting, etc. It will be interesting to see if they can find a way to scale while remaining authentic and providing something not available on every other kind of media.
On one hand, I get it, especially in the covid era when social interaction is curtailed. On the other, I am really damn tired of hearing about it. It seems like Clubhouse's membership is comprised of people who either want to be followers or influencers, neither of whom I am all that interested in meeting or hearing talk for several hours. And the intention is apparently to replace or supplement a podcast diet, but I have yet to find a podcast that is more valuable to me than audiobooks. The only live speakers I've seen and learned anything from were academics. Maybe they are on Clubhouse or will be eventually? I haven't used it so maybe I'm missing something.
Clubhouse is the most amazing thing that happened to social MEDIA. Its a much better way to discuss even difficult subjects because it keeps most people much more humble and provide the ability to much better deal with conflict and disagreements. Most social media isnt builtt for disagreements, audio definitely is. The quality of some of these rooms like the Small Steps Giant Leaps about space technology and VC is amazing. Or the AI/ML room which goes on for days is extreme informative. Dont be a hater, try it out and DM me if you want tricks for how to curate your feed.
put your interest in your bio, delete rooms you aren't interested in in the hallway, follow people you find interesting, follow clubs. Especially remove room you arent interested in will remove the usual breakfast with millionaires snake oil sales rooms.
I think my tech predictions are required reading for everyone based on how frequently I’m wrong. Just yesterday I said “what’s so great about Clubhouse, I don’t see the point”. By doing so I think I virtually guaranteed it’s success.
Jokes aside, Ben’s argument here seems solid. It will depend on them solving discovery as well as TikTok did but they could be huge if they manage it.
I am a strong sell on ClubHouse at a $2b valuation. Just like Medium and Quora, once the masses are allowed on, the noise will get too high and the signal will get lost.
Twitter is full of noise yet somehow I get decent enough signal to be a daily active user. Does Clubhouse achieve this independently or is this a hard problem and Twitter could clone Clubhouse features and somehow solve this problem?
I'd really like to see what their engagement and retention numbers are, because after a few days on Clubhouse I just deleted the app. Just a bunch of nonsense conversations, many of which were led by people that sell the snake-oil of how to become successful in business and life, whereas their major accomplishment seems to be being known for selling that snake-oil. Sometimes there was a random celebrity talking about things they couldn't speak all that eloquently about (reminded me of the classic Dave Chappelle "I want some answers that Ja Rule might not have right now" [1]).
At least Twitter and Instagram felt fun when they started. Clubhouse just felt boring.
It is the reality of any information platform that you have the risk of running into snake-oil sellers. That is the challenge of quality content control.
First time I went on Clubhouse, first got in a room with some Silicon Valley types talking about how to grow your startup. I get enough of that content so left to explore further and found a room with some African Americans discussing the best way to "snort crack from a booty hole". Perhaps it's my sense of humour but I laughed my head off and was immediately hooked. Felt like the Internet of the "good old days". Also I'm comfortable talking on voice from doing a podcast. Actually I usually hook up my Rødecaster Pro for better quality audio.
Some random tips I've found make Clubhouse more entertaining...
- Follow lots of people - don't be like Twitter, Instagram etc. trying to have more followers than follows. The more people you follow, the more diverse your room suggestions become
- From the home screen of the app, scroll down and find the little "Explore" button ... this will take you to more rooms. Smaller rooms tend to be lower down
- If you want to get involved in a discussion, go to the smaller rooms
- Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think (which I'm guessing they will disable)
- Most of all, get out of your comfort zone, when it comes to your normal interests / ethnicity etc. It's very low friction to talk to anyone and people are largely polite. It's a great to get to know groups of people you'd otherwise avoid and get new perspectives.
If you want to connect hit me up on @harryfcks in the app.
I'll give my thoughts. Although the wording seems clunky at first, the GP is actually identifying something really important about the growth of Clubhouse as a platform. Similar to Twitter, which has Black Twitter [0], Latino Twitter, etc, it seems that Clubhouse will also build these kinds of communities.
When a chief concern about Clubhouse is lack of diversity, I think this is pretty meaningful. What I'm more interested in seeing though, is if Clubhouse can also incorporate class diversity without betraying its brand of exclusivity.
It doesn't, in and of itself. Here it's a proxy for a certain social or cultural group.
To me it's interesting because it seems to reflect how innovation in things like music tends to migrate from ethnic African groups to the white middle class.
Please consider that there is a world outside of the US. This dismissive attitude towards the rest of the world is what makes the way of living of a lot (actual billions) of people get excluded when US companies create things.
> Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph.
Wow, this was fascinating. There was a weird dichotomy on mine. If I clicked on my straight, white, male friends, in almost every case the chain ended in just one or two clicks with an OG user.
If I clicked on anyone else (minority, women, etc), it was a long chain of people that usually involved a long string of black men and women.
My own chain was an exception, having been invited by a minority woman and going through that long chain of black men and women. Even though I'm friends with a bunch of those straight white guys with short chains. But I never asked for an invite when they were all advertising invites on Facebook. I only joined when my friend insisted and sent me an invite.
I don't know what any of that actually means, I just found it really interesting.
The artificial constraint of invites is relatively temporary and in the long run arguably potentially irrelevant.
Say we agree that in the short run, the "phenomenon" of clubhouse makes the artificial construction of "who's in the room" material and detrimental. Then the question to you is: who is harmed and to what extent?
I found that if I went higher a few levels from me, the sideways, then everyone was either an internet marketer, some form of influencer, or startup “guru”.
Maybe it’s just my local graph, but it turned me off somewhat
I don't use the notifications - have them disabled. I just dip in when I have time and see what's happening. May not be the best strategy but works for me.
Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think.
The first time I saw this kind of thing was on lobste.rs, where they call it the “user tree”: https://lobste.rs/u
On both Clubhouse and lobste.rs, surfacing the invite tree makes users more mindful of who they invite. To an extent, they’re vouching for that person, and can be held responsible if that person misbehaves.
Does anyone know what social network first exposed invite trees? I assume it can’t have originated recently with lobste.rs.
Plenty of p2p communities have been doing something similar for years. If you invite someone to the forum, and they get banned, you get banned too... or at least have your privileges revoked for some time.
I enjoy podcasts and audiobooks, too. I listen to technical and political podcasts regularly, and sometimes I try other genres when I don't feel like learning or getting disappointed by politics.
I heard people talking about Clubhouse, they were all like "wow, amazing, revolutionary". They told me I would need to watch my screen time, because they are 10 hours a day on Clubhouse. I asked them to explain to me why they enjoy it, I didn't get it but wanted to try anyway.
I got an invite, and tried the app. What a disappointment that was, I tried to follow interesting people and content, checked out what my friends were following, listened in on multiple rooms, stayed long and hoped something worthwhile would happen, but no, nothing really happened.
Boring content, from people who are mostly neither funny, nor insightful (which is fine, most people are not extraordinary, it's not a personal attack or something, it's just that the top "talkers" already rose to the top via TV shows and podcasts).
The constant reminders on LinkedIn about past discussions on the platform that I would be interested in is even more annoying, as I can't just open the talks later.
I'm sure there are good conversations there but the noise to signal (value) ratio at clubhouse is just very very low.
There are many uses cases, but one of them *might be as a potential solution to current social media polarization.
Imagine putting radical liberals and conservatives or loyal Taiwanese and Chinese in the same room AND be able to participate in the discussion.
The value Clubhouse brings is the ability to start a dialogue to understand the other side that we are often blinded from - empathy through conversation from multiple viewpoints.
Civil discussions that were never possible can now be (abuses are quickly reported and kicked out). Of course we will have to see the long term repercussions of this technology that only time can tell.
> empathy through conversation. "Let's have a talk"
why is it that clubhouse will do anything differently than what a FB post does? AKA devolve into mindless attacks in the comments sections about the way you look in your profile pic, your race/ethnicity, etc.
is the difference simply..because it's voice? i think it's naive to think this is some new mindblowing tech considering a few points: a. it's invite only b. it's populated by tech oriented people.
the only people that benefit from this are yuppies and already well off people. i want to hear opinions from the lower class too which i can guarantee are 100% not on clubhouse and are instead busy dealing with real life problems instead of talking about them on some VC backed app touted as the greatest revolution by mostly vapid social media sites (read: linkedin, producthunt, etc)
i realize its a pessimistic POV but at this point in my life and all my years in tech..i'm tired of hearing how some random social media app is going to change the world for the better again and again. but also, i would LOVE to be proved wrong one day.
I am not sure if you have seen the difference from communication via text only vs. voice/video. (ex: work or relationships). The later clears so much misunderstandings.
For those who choose not to talk or ask questions, you can just listen in. But instead of a tube of biased information fueled by an AI algorithm (most social media today), you get to have a diverse group of people (up to 5k and expanding) all in one room, each able to participate.
It is a two-way real-time dialogue, like in a conference panel discussion or an university class where the professor is lecturing, but also facilitating discussion among students. ex: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvard+justice
As for the invite only and tech oriented people, it is done for now to cope with bandwidth due to server limitations and also to have content quality control. It will be open to all eventually, they are still figuring it out. HN is an example of the complexities of moderation to maintain quality.
Of course the human brain is going to be naturally biased and the development of content recommendations will eventually led to the same tribal mentality problem, but this is to be seen on how the creators moderate the platform to avoid the disasters from the past.
I don't really know how Clubhouse works. But why would radical liberals and conservatives ever want to talk with each other unless forced to? Seems from most other parts of the internet that people like to surround themselves with like-minded people.
When the topic of the discussion decides who wants to participate.
Like a debate: From non-serious as "cereal is soup" to "Do degrees/college dictate success?" and "Taiwan is part of China" (these actually happened)... The moderators can control the room but can also be reported by participants if he/she violates the guidelines- not sure how abuse is verified though. There is mutual accountability.
This is a good idea and one I'm about to debut shortly. Our guests will be highly rated journalists from across the political spectrum so that it is less likely to devolve into vitriol and rather is insightful people talking about their view on an important issue.
Out of curiosity when did you join CH? I find the the app differs by month, it was good for me for exactly one month. I think the predominate culture shifts so much as waves of people join, and they're not very good at allocating people into their respective tribes. So people churn when it's no longer their cup of tea.
Their solution seems to be these high profile interviews held by investors of the app, almost like HBO would have GoT to get the weekly engagement up.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 292 ms ] threadI listened to a podcast recently (Blocked and Reported) where they were critiquing how journalists have been advocating for fact checkers in every single clubhouse room. An app like this isn’t news that needs to be fact checked - it’s a bunch of strangers yammering on and talking out of their ass like you do at a bar. Some people are way too uptight.
This seems to be a good nutshell of Clubhouse and it's popularity.
I think Netflix and YouTube have proven how hard this is. Watch a couple of the wrong shows and you a doomed forever it seems. It's a bit like Echo Chambers too. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)
For controversial stuff etc, it's better to watch it in incognito. And really any topic that you're not actually interested in. I watched a few minecraft videos to figure out a redstone thing I was working on, and my recommendations were flooded with garbage minecraft videos.
I have the impression that the algorithm sees that you watched something a little more popular in general and latches into that trying to bring you to a larger more generic cluster. Same thing happens with music, for me.
Or maybe it was an eternal September problem or just the fact that DVDs meant there was more content that could be found, but I've not found anything as good as the old school Netflix community reviews.
Meanwhile amazon is convinced I'm a woman and won't leave me alone about that ... Google is convinced I love a college football team that is in fact a rival because I google something about them once in a blue moon .... Trump was really interested in me filling out a happy birthday card for his wife (nope, that's creepy)... and they stand to make money on that, a still get it wrong.
Now those seem lost... they're often in a limbo where they only exist in DVD form now, but not streaming.
I used to watch quite a few older and newer movies when it was a DVD service. Now, I just get all of their branded content shoved down my throat with little if any options beyond that. Search is inconsistent at best.
I've been thinking about canceling my subscription for a while now as I feel the value of Netflix just isn't there any more.
I used it until a few years ago, it seemed the same as ever back then. Now we just have more options through various services for streaming, vs waiting on DVD.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clubhouse_(app)
I never gave it much thought but I assumed that, like the adoption of SSL everywhere for websites, all apps spoke only SSL ... does the app store not enforce this ?
Just like I don't listen to podcasts, I can't imagine sitting around listening to people talk about things with no visuals. I'm not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if I wanted to.
Personally speaking, I listen while walking, running, or driving.
Also, just because something is ”brutal honesty” doesn’t mean it isn’t also a rant, nor that it’s the truth.
But I agree too. There's nothing special about Clubhouse expect that it is super-hyped by the VCs, media and the techies as the next big thing and I'm not convinced.
My perception is that Clubhouse is that it's yet-another amplifier for the group of folks who already have a large following and are able to produce quality content. Listening to anything long-form and live risks being a huge waste of time. Audiences are willing to listen to well-known people because it has a higher chance of being interesting at all.
Unfortunately, the feedback I've heard is that the meetings hosted by the rest of the not-so well-known community have been generally terrible. I think people underestimate power of async communication and how it powers discoverability. There's too much noise out there already and very little time to filter it out to discover new content. Especially when the content is only produced live. Growing a YouTube/Podcast audience and growing a Clubhouse audience are going to be very different challenges.
I'm also unconvinced that this is a winner-take-all space. My understanding is that the technology moat here is very narrow compared to what it takes to run YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've already seen several interesting hacks put together by individuals with their own twist to this space.
That said, I'd really like to see the community stop claiming that "Clubhouse will be bigger than X platform!" such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
So while looking at it from a large numbers angle, yes, the power law applies and winners take all, digging into individual level stories, there will be people who will rise up thanks to the new app.
Not sure what that means, but I do still think there are opportunities here.
The most validating thing as an entrepreneur is for there to be competition, because it means someone else recognized that you're right - there's a market and a product that can fit that market, and that money can be made off of it.
It feels like the reason I no longer listen to live radio. Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?
What I really don't understand is people trying to build a connection to podcasts? Why? Just because it's audio too? The reason I enjoy podcasts is that I get to enjoy specific topics (or field specific news) from a list of sources I curate myself. I have show notes, know roughly what I get into with an episode, and get to pause and rewind, and that is just a part of it.
The comparison to podcasts is to be "the thing that you listen to while doing something else".
They're too lacking in self awareness for that, moreover, this is not remotely a threat.
150% my exact experience. I don't get it, so I uninstalled it.
That right there is one reason why I've never even tried it. I refuse to use app-only networks. Give me a web site that I can use from anywhere. Let me control what content my device downloads. There's no fucking way I'm buying into an app-only future.
Agreed.
Same thing happened with Ello ( https://ello.co/ ). Started out as invite only, which appealed to a certain group of people. Then the shine wore off and most users went back to FB and Twitter. Then it rebranded itself as a social media platform for creatives where it seems to have found a solid audience.
The attraction of CH is exactly this: getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear. When it first started more of these types of conversations were happening and it did feel like you were part of the "in group" getting to hear things that ordinary people weren't privy to.
Making secrets explicit as a business model is not sustainable though. As more and more people file into the app creators are going be less and less explicit and all that will be left is the banal and boring (which may be enough actually, as the app is still addicting if you're a lurker).
Here's my prediction: CH is here to stay, but it will hit a ceiling. Additionally some people on the app are clearly playing with fire and we will likely see someone important get into trouble on the app and that will be the end of the (already dying) cool factor of the app.
Feels like a side effect from being new and artifically limited via invites and I doubt that aspect will be kept very long. Same with people praising how friendly the discourse is supposed to be.
You start as a child, and go forth and develop your place in the world.
If everyone is the same, no one is unique.
Different desires lead to different contributions which have different levels of value to society which lead to different levels of social status.
I've heard it described as Twitch Chat minus Twitch, just the Chat.
I think the lesson is that the impulse to imitate high-status people is very strong. Even when the behavior has no intrinsic value to the average Joe. If a social network gains a reputation for where SV entrepreneurs or "thought leaders" or Harvard heiresses hang out, then many people will flock to it regardless of what the actual experience is like. When Facebook opened up to a new campus, students would sign up en masse without even realizing what the product was.
[1]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961816878890598... [2]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961480306553651... [3]: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service
Quora ended up being like if Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn had a baby. I expect Clubhouse to go in a similar direction.
Taking a page from the LinkedIn playbook
Their target demographic seems more like conferences or university lectures with active participation, where education is the primary goal. I used to think that this might go away after covid, but after examination, the social utility is of tremendous value. I am usually against all social media (deleted most), which I think corrodes society, but clubhouse seems to be onto something.
Some controversial topics that could not have been discussed in person can be started here (and across the globe), expanding understanding on both sides: ex: politics, gender discrimination, Taiwan vs. China, etc.
There are also some funny/serious ones, for example “Attractive women explain things to tech bros” started as a joke but evolved into an advice place.
Yes, with every content platform you will inevitably have the quality issue, but I their content filtering can improve over time
To be fair there's still good radio out there and not even just on the internet. The really commercial stuff on most of the FM band is tedious but personally I really love people who are passionate about music play me things I might not have heard before. Things like BBC Radio Six Music and the former offshore pirate Radio Caroline are both pretty good in this regard.
A good radio DJ can create a far more personal and human experience than just waiting for Spotify's algorithm to give you something vaguely related.
Jokes aside, Ben’s argument here seems solid. It will depend on them solving discovery as well as TikTok did but they could be huge if they manage it.
At least Twitter and Instagram felt fun when they started. Clubhouse just felt boring.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc
Where you are not invited.
Maybe once it opens up to everyone.
Some random tips I've found make Clubhouse more entertaining...
- Follow lots of people - don't be like Twitter, Instagram etc. trying to have more followers than follows. The more people you follow, the more diverse your room suggestions become
- From the home screen of the app, scroll down and find the little "Explore" button ... this will take you to more rooms. Smaller rooms tend to be lower down
- If you want to get involved in a discussion, go to the smaller rooms
- Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think (which I'm guessing they will disable)
- Most of all, get out of your comfort zone, when it comes to your normal interests / ethnicity etc. It's very low friction to talk to anyone and people are largely polite. It's a great to get to know groups of people you'd otherwise avoid and get new perspectives.
If you want to connect hit me up on @harryfcks in the app.
When a chief concern about Clubhouse is lack of diversity, I think this is pretty meaningful. What I'm more interested in seeing though, is if Clubhouse can also incorporate class diversity without betraying its brand of exclusivity.
Note: I'm not on Clubhouse and don't want to be.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Twitter
To me it's interesting because it seems to reflect how innovation in things like music tends to migrate from ethnic African groups to the white middle class.
Unless chatroulette became something different than the video window 1:1 with random people and usually phallic symbols... did I miss something?
Very very different from chatroulette, in my opinion.
Wow, this was fascinating. There was a weird dichotomy on mine. If I clicked on my straight, white, male friends, in almost every case the chain ended in just one or two clicks with an OG user.
If I clicked on anyone else (minority, women, etc), it was a long chain of people that usually involved a long string of black men and women.
My own chain was an exception, having been invited by a minority woman and going through that long chain of black men and women. Even though I'm friends with a bunch of those straight white guys with short chains. But I never asked for an invite when they were all advertising invites on Facebook. I only joined when my friend insisted and sent me an invite.
I don't know what any of that actually means, I just found it really interesting.
I think you may be looking for something that isn't there.
Still not sure how this is relevant.
Say we agree that in the short run, the "phenomenon" of clubhouse makes the artificial construction of "who's in the room" material and detrimental. Then the question to you is: who is harmed and to what extent?
This is perhaps a bit philosophical.
Maybe it’s just my local graph, but it turned me off somewhat
Even at infrequent, it notified me every 30 mins in the last 18 hours... while I was sleeping too. Just wild.
The first time I saw this kind of thing was on lobste.rs, where they call it the “user tree”: https://lobste.rs/u
On both Clubhouse and lobste.rs, surfacing the invite tree makes users more mindful of who they invite. To an extent, they’re vouching for that person, and can be held responsible if that person misbehaves.
Does anyone know what social network first exposed invite trees? I assume it can’t have originated recently with lobste.rs.
I enjoy podcasts and audiobooks, too. I listen to technical and political podcasts regularly, and sometimes I try other genres when I don't feel like learning or getting disappointed by politics.
I heard people talking about Clubhouse, they were all like "wow, amazing, revolutionary". They told me I would need to watch my screen time, because they are 10 hours a day on Clubhouse. I asked them to explain to me why they enjoy it, I didn't get it but wanted to try anyway.
I got an invite, and tried the app. What a disappointment that was, I tried to follow interesting people and content, checked out what my friends were following, listened in on multiple rooms, stayed long and hoped something worthwhile would happen, but no, nothing really happened.
Boring content, from people who are mostly neither funny, nor insightful (which is fine, most people are not extraordinary, it's not a personal attack or something, it's just that the top "talkers" already rose to the top via TV shows and podcasts).
The constant reminders on LinkedIn about past discussions on the platform that I would be interested in is even more annoying, as I can't just open the talks later.
I'm sure there are good conversations there but the noise to signal (value) ratio at clubhouse is just very very low.
Imagine putting radical liberals and conservatives or loyal Taiwanese and Chinese in the same room AND be able to participate in the discussion.
The value Clubhouse brings is the ability to start a dialogue to understand the other side that we are often blinded from - empathy through conversation from multiple viewpoints.
Civil discussions that were never possible can now be (abuses are quickly reported and kicked out). Of course we will have to see the long term repercussions of this technology that only time can tell.
why is it that clubhouse will do anything differently than what a FB post does? AKA devolve into mindless attacks in the comments sections about the way you look in your profile pic, your race/ethnicity, etc.
is the difference simply..because it's voice? i think it's naive to think this is some new mindblowing tech considering a few points: a. it's invite only b. it's populated by tech oriented people.
the only people that benefit from this are yuppies and already well off people. i want to hear opinions from the lower class too which i can guarantee are 100% not on clubhouse and are instead busy dealing with real life problems instead of talking about them on some VC backed app touted as the greatest revolution by mostly vapid social media sites (read: linkedin, producthunt, etc)
i realize its a pessimistic POV but at this point in my life and all my years in tech..i'm tired of hearing how some random social media app is going to change the world for the better again and again. but also, i would LOVE to be proved wrong one day.
I am not sure if you have seen the difference from communication via text only vs. voice/video. (ex: work or relationships). The later clears so much misunderstandings.
For those who choose not to talk or ask questions, you can just listen in. But instead of a tube of biased information fueled by an AI algorithm (most social media today), you get to have a diverse group of people (up to 5k and expanding) all in one room, each able to participate.
It is a two-way real-time dialogue, like in a conference panel discussion or an university class where the professor is lecturing, but also facilitating discussion among students. ex: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvard+justice
As for the invite only and tech oriented people, it is done for now to cope with bandwidth due to server limitations and also to have content quality control. It will be open to all eventually, they are still figuring it out. HN is an example of the complexities of moderation to maintain quality.
Of course the human brain is going to be naturally biased and the development of content recommendations will eventually led to the same tribal mentality problem, but this is to be seen on how the creators moderate the platform to avoid the disasters from the past.
Like a debate: From non-serious as "cereal is soup" to "Do degrees/college dictate success?" and "Taiwan is part of China" (these actually happened)... The moderators can control the room but can also be reported by participants if he/she violates the guidelines- not sure how abuse is verified though. There is mutual accountability.
Their solution seems to be these high profile interviews held by investors of the app, almost like HBO would have GoT to get the weekly engagement up.