The brainchild of ex-Google employees Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth was originally conceived as an alternative to Zoom and Team for remote work: no text and video, just a live conversation of everyone with everyone. Colleagues in Silicon Valley appreciated the novelty: in May, Clubhouse had 1.5 thousand users and was estimated at $100 million. As of February 1, 2021, 2 million users registered on the social network, and its value soared to $1 billion. Thanks to Elon Musk, who announced in late January Twitter, which will be broadcast at the Clubhouse "tonight at ten in the evening in Los Angeles." A few hours later, he was chatting with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and telling five thousand listeners (the maximum number of people in the chat) how his startup Neuralink implanted a chip in the brain of a monkey, thanks to which it can play video games "with the help of its mind."
Thanks to their audio get-togethers with the second richest person on Earth, the application shot into the App Store (Clubhouse is only available for iOS so far), and enterprising users began to sell invites: Clubhouse is a closed application for friends of friends, where you can register only by signing up. Although the treasured link can be bought, for example on Avito it costs around 500 rubles.
Shot from the film "Moscow does not believe in tears"
© KINOPOISK.RU
Clubhouse rules of conduct
- You can only communicate by voice - there are no videos, images or chat. As there is no live recording, screen recording is prohibited - the application saves the video without sound and bans for bypassing the rules.
- Participants are divided into speakers and listeners. A listener can become a speaker if they “raise their hand” by pressing a button in the application, or if one of the speakers or moderators “raises” them.
- The communication itself resembles a conference or a friendly conversation (depending on the rules of a particular room: in some, for example, it is forbidden to swear and turn on the microphone until the speaker finishes talking). You can also create an interest club in Clubhouse and create rooms through it.
- Rooms can be scheduled for a specific time, add interesting meetings to the built-in calendar and share them in other applications.
- Clubhouse sends push notifications about all scheduled and open rooms in which those who the user is following participate. The social network algorithm offers to subscribe to users from among your friends and contacts list, as well as based on the interests you have marked. Users recommend that you enter the rooms and follow the speakers you are interested in, so the application will start offering you more relevant rooms.
What is discussed in a closed community
The Clubhouse talk about different things. After registering and filling in the interests, users disperse into rooms (you can join the majority as a free listener, you can click on the emoji of a raised hand so that the moderators give you the floor; there are also private rooms). In the rooms of the western segment, for example, you can eavesdrop on Jared Leto talking about the need to wash vegetables and fruits with soap, drop in on an interview with Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, discuss the craft with stand-up comedians, and listen to new creations by MC Hammer and Fab 5 Freddy .
The most numerous room in the Russian segment is The Dacha, created by expats: entrepreneur Matthew Lewis and his daughter, designer Anastasia Davydova-Lewis. As of February 10, 1.8 thousand people are participating (that is, performing) in The Dacha, in total 7.8 thousand people have subscribed to the room. Summer residents take things seriously and hold panel discussions with entrepreneurs and experts from various industries, for example, about promoting musicians on TikTok, arrange lectures, entertainment in the “What? Where? When?, quiz. Subscribers can offer their own formats and events.
On February 9, the room “Who is German Klimenko and why is it needed?” began to actively gain popularity, the moderators of which, among others, include DJ and host of the YouTube show “Girlfriends” Ksenia Dukalis, SMM strategist and author of the Russian Marketing Telegram channel Semyon Efimov and the author of the Telegram channel about the Remizorro movie Artem Remizov. A couple of minutes after the launch of the room, the real Herman Klimenko (a former presidential adviser on the Internet) visited her and kindly talked to the spontaneously formed fan club.
According to the same scheme, the guys decided to drag actor Anton Lapenko into the Clubhouse and renamed the room “Who is Anton Lapenko and why is Anton Lapenko needed?”. Newly arrived participants were greeted with a collective meme "Hey, father!" . Lapenko himself did not enter the room, but the founding father of the Comedy Club Tash Sargsyan, Mikhail Galustyan and hockey player Evgeni Malkin visited. They talked about everything: from the story of meeting with Eddie Murphy to the difference in taxi services. On February 10, the room was renamed “Who is Danya Milokhin and why is it needed?”: the creator of Dream Team House Yaroslav Andreev and, in fact, the hero of the occasion, who easily answered a dozen curious questions, joined the polylogue.
Interestingly, some users sit in the Clubhouse, as they say, all day long, joining in conversations from time to time. Others (especially opponents of podcasts and audiobooks) have a hard time with the format. But if you are an auditory person, Clubhouse will surely replace one of the text social networks for you.
“I best perceive information by ear,” explains Yunna Vradiy, editor of the “Health” column at RBC Style, who is delighted with the new application. — At Clubhouse, it’s as easy as possible to organize communication with cool people right here and now: you don’t need to arrange a phone call with anyone or go to a meeting. I went to the application - and you are already participating in the discussion. For example, I went out for a walk, joined the podcast room, introduced myself, and the best people in the segment advised me for 20 minutes on how to develop my tiny podcast.” Yunna shares that on her fifth day of active use of the Clubhouse, she began to hear more and more jokes about creating a room “I haven’t slept since I got into the Clubhouse, what should I do?”
Obviously, people were divided into those who got into the Clubhouse, did not understand anything and left, and those who got hooked. Vradiy continues: “For me personally, after Clubhouse, communicating in letters in other social networks seems to be some kind of archaic and not very natural action, as if you got into a three-dimensional world, and suddenly you are thrown back into two-dimensional. Of course, people bribe separately. There are many touching moments when the founders of Silicon Valley tech startups organize enlightenment rooms where they kindly and patiently explain to newcomers how to succeed in IT, a la "click on the button in the lower left corner of the screen."
Artem Remizov believes that the advantage and value of a fresh social network, no matter how cynical, is precisely in its closeness, as well as the ability to catch up with people who have great media weight. “To be honest, in Russia closed parties always attract more interest than clubs or bars that work all night long,” comments Artem. “In addition, in the era of quarantine, communication has become the most valuable currency - it calms many, helps many to overcome the fears and worries caused by the situation in Russia and in the world.” Although it’s hard to surprise with the audio format, especially with audio messages in 2021 (remember how many times you cursed when you received another ten-minute voice in the middle of a working day), record a couple of phrases for Drake or Pokras Lampas and get an answer from them is sometimes more entertaining than exchanging voice with friends. “Clubhouse is devoid of officialdom. People enter a room with a significant person and feel close to her,” adds Artem. Of the obvious advantages of the Clubhouse, he also highlights the variety of genres and the ability to find friends with the same interests. “As a film blogger, I will create themed rooms and add everyone involved in them to get a kind of nightly conversation in the kitchen - without moralizing, lectures and moderation. I really want Russian comedians and musicians to come to the Clubhouse - I think the concert at the new venue will definitely become an event.”
, host of The City program on Moscow 24 TV channel and Koroche , predicts that Clubhouse will develop together with podcasting. “For me, as a podcaster, the app is good because I can make live streams with the click of a button and connect everyone to the conversation. That is, the listeners of the conditional podcast had a voice next to the presenter. So, on Friday at 9:30 am, I host the "Fashion is My Profession" room for those involved in the fashion industry." Pavel also notes that it is too early to talk about the cons of Clubhouse: “It has as many cons as Instagram and TikTok. The problem is not with the social network, but with those who do not know how to use it.”
However, attentive users immediately figured out the main drawback - privacy problems : Clubhouse warns that all conversations are recorded in order to resolve possible conflicts (if the user reports a violation of the community rules in the room or an insult to the support team, the Clubhouse team will listen to the conversation and issue a verdict) . If users do not complain to the support service, the record is deleted after the room is closed. Accordingly, there is no talk of any end-to-end data encryption in the application. Which has already played into the hands of the Chinese authorities, who blocked the application in the country: they say there is nothing to discuss politics.
But let's wait for the assessments of competent specialists and fi Pavel Durov. If you are reading this text and do not understand how to find time to listen to the conversation of the creator of Mail.ru Dmitry Grishin, say, with Alena Doletskaya (not to mention joining her), Osovtsov advises setting aside an hour for the Clubhouse in the morning and before bedtime. “This is no different from spending time on, say, posting stories on Instagram, only the benefits of Clubhouse are many times greater,” the host sums up.
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