Month: April 2021

Editorial: The Competition for Social Audio Is Getting Interesting

Twitter versus Clubhouse: who will win the battle for social audio?

I’ve written twice this week about Clubhouse (here and here), and I remain endlessly fascinated about social audio apps in general, and the two leading apps, Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse, in particular. It would appear that the competition between Twitter and Clubhouse is beginning to heat up, with Twitter working aggressively to add users and features while Clubhouse seems to be experiencing some growing pains. While Clubhouse has the early lead, Twitter is making slow but steady progress, particularly in support for Android users.

Late this afternoon, I listened to a Twitter Spaces room where the future of Twitter was discussed at length, and it is clear that the new push is towards attracting content creators and providing ways to effectively monetize the platform for them. Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour tweeted today about just how far Twitter Spaces has come in only four months:

Anyone of Twitter with more than 600 followers can now host their own Twitter Spaces room, which anybody on Twitter can listen to and join in, without any limit on how many people can be in the room (Clubhouse rooms are capped at 5,000 people). Also, Twtter Spaces supports both iOS and Android devices, although Clubhouse is expected to roll out Android support sometime in the next month.

Also, Clubhouse does not have a direct message ability, relying instead on people putting Instagram and Twitter links in their bios so that people can contact each other. Of course, Twitter already has direct messaging built into the platform (although celebrities and other people can choose to turn that feature off).

All this means is that social audio is still anybody’s game to win. While Twitter Spaces is lagging behind Clubhouse in terms of overall features, Twitter has something that Clubhouse does not: a much larger potential audience (192 million users). In other words, once Kayvon and his team work out some of the bugs and add more features, they could potentially have a hit on their hands. And Facebook, with 2.8 billion user accounts and deep pockets full of profits from advertising, has the potential to come in and steamroller over both Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces.

(By the way, the Twitter Spaces room I was in crashed abruptly…it would appear that there are still quite a few bugs to iron out!)

Stay tuned; things are about to get really interesting!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: How to Pick Up 287 Womenswear Gifts (Including 176 Fatpacks) for Only L$20!

I received a tip that Scandalize and its sister store, Melody, had a brand new skybox location for their group gifts, so I paid a visit.

What a bonanza! To the left from the central fountain is the Scandalize group gift room, with 29 shoe fatpacks, 24 outfit fatpacks, and an additional 104 gifts of women’s clothing and footwear! Many of these are older group gifts which you might already have picked up, but I noticed some new items as well.

On the far side of the fountain is the new Scandalize Outlet, where if you join their Scandals SL Frees & News group for free, you can scoop up 123 womenswear fatpacks! Again, many of these were available at the old outlet location, but I spotted many new ones as well, so it’s well worth a revisit.

Finally, to the right of the fountain is the Melody shop, with seven group gifts you can pick up if you join the Melody group for free (just click the panel on the gift wall):

Two hundred and eighty-seven gifts for only L$20 works out to a staggering L$0.07 per gift, which is easily the best deal on the grid! So, what are you waiting for? Here’s your taxi.

Happy freebie shopping!

I Have 200 Invitations to Join Clubhouse

If you have been waiting for an invitation to join the hot new drop-in audio app Clubhouse, here’s your opportunity to check it out for yourself!

Please remember that Clubhouse is currently only for iOS mobile devices (iPhone or iPad), although Android support is coming in the next month.

I have 100 invitations to join Clubhouse and become a member of the Ask a Librarian club, just click the following link:

https://www.joinclubhouse.com/join/ask-a-reference-libr/Zv2dv6nJ/P9WGkbov

And I have second batch of 100 invitations to join Clubhouse and become a member of the Winnipeg Manitoba Canada club, just click this link:

https://www.joinclubhouse.com/join/winnipeg-manitoba-canada/wkl8qOeA/mgJVQEab

See you in Clubhouse! Even though the initial honeymoon period is over, I still find lots of interesting conversations to listen to and participate in! When you do join, search for me (I am using my standard red-background icon), and follow me!

Clubhouse: The Honeymoon Is Over

Clubhouse users are unhappy
(Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash)

I have been listening, off and on, to various rooms on Clubhouse, yesterday and today, and to me, it feels as if the wheels are starting to come off the bus.

A brief recap of recent drama that has erupted on the social audio app includes:

1. The Black woman, introduced a month and a half ago at one of the company’s townhalls as the new face on the Clubhouse app icon (which they rotate regularly) who was, without any explanation, replaced, causing a high degree of controversy within Clubhouse’s Black community that is still ongoing, despite Clubhouse’s rather ham-fisted attempts at damage control;

2. The Clubhouse Creator Program sent out mass rejection emails to all 5,000-odd unsuccessful applicants yesterday, leading to many rooms full of salty people discussing and digesting the news, and speculating as to who the successful 60 shortlisted applicants were (the speculation is rife, with a good dash of hearsay and gossip);

3. After announcing a brand-new partnership with the NFL, an ex-NFL player who hosted the most popular NFL room on Clubhouse discovered that his club name and logo were abruptly removed without notice, and the company forced him to change his club name and logo.

In short, the staff at Clubhouse can’t seem to do anything lately without inciting drama and ill will among its user base. Many people have commented that the treatment of the woman in item 1 and the man in item 3 above was particularly shabby. Clubhouse can’t seem to put a foot right lately; perhaps the hyper-charged growth over the past 13 months has led to problems within the company?

The singular strength of Clubhouse (the ability for users to spin up rooms at will, to discuss, debate, and argue about any topic) is leading to the platform’s worst nightmare: a user base that is angrily accusing Clubhouse of being tone-deaf and ignoring them. The content creators of Clubhouse are, by and large, feeling betrayed.

Between its increasingly unhappy userbase, and competition from Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and many other companies that are now planning their own drop-in audio apps, things are suddenly not looking quite as rosy at Clubhouse as they were only a couple of months ago.

Vanity Fair magazine, in an April 23rd, 2021 article titled The Clubhouse Party Is Over (archived version), says:

“I think the app is changing. People may spend an hour or two on there instead of six straight hours. It feels more like people will tune in for programming occasionally, as opposed to using it as an online community to cure the loneliness of quarantine,” one super-user of the platform told me, who still loves using Clubhouse, but also now sees its limitations. “The app still has the rare ability to put you in direct contact with people you look up to. However, it also now feels like home to more chaotic, polarizing conversations—that make it feel like ‘audio Twitter.’” The user added that the platform has become “a bit of a cesspool of racism and anti-Semitism and shady marketing groups.” For some people, that actually might sound like a fun party—but for most of us, it sounds like an app that deserves to be lingering in the bottom of the app store.

OUCH. Will Clubhouse survive its growing pains? Stay tuned!