Audio-only social media platform ‘Clubhouse’ gaining popularity

Within two weeks of its launch, the platform has garnered 20 lakh downloads on Google Play.

Hyderabad: A new social media platform is creating waves in the online space and giving tough competition to the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. After text-based and picture-based sharing platforms, an audio-based sharing platform called Clubhouse has been growing and becoming popular by the day. The audio-only social networking platform was launched on the Android platform just last month and it is accessible through invite-only.

Within two weeks of its launch, the platform has garnered 20 lakh downloads on Google Play. While it is invite-only, a tweet by the Clubhouse twitter handle spoke about making it a general release this summer which means that it could be open to all and may not require an invite to join the app. The audio-only app hosts live discussions, with opportunities to participate through speaking and listening.

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The app was founded by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth in March 2020 and many social media biggies like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg are using the app.

Rohan Seth is a Stanford graduate who helped create Google’s user location platform before founding early tech start-up Memry Labs. After Memry Labs was acquired by Opendoor, Seth stayed on and led product growth from April 2017 to December 2019. Rohan is also the co-founder of Lydian Accelerator. Paul Davison is also a Stanford graduate and was the founder of Highlight – a location-based service that allows you to discover people – which was later acquired by Pinterest. He then went to work for Coinlist before launching Clubhouse.

Key features include a Virtual Room wherein people can communicate with each other via audio; Events wherein users can plan events in advance with a set date and time; Clubs wherein users who converse regularly to share their interests; Explore is for users to provide access to ongoing chat rooms and Creator First which is an accelerator programme for content creators. These and many others are included in the app.

According to reports, Clubhouse was valued at $100 million after receiving funding from several venture capitalists, including a $12 million Series A investment from the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, in May 2020. As of April 2021, venture capitalists valued Clubhouse at nearly $4 billion in a funding round.

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