The Curious case of Clubhouse

Remember the time when we signed up to waitlist for an app that was exclusive on all fronts, just iPhone and the USA? Despite being an invite-only app, Clubhouse has gathered a lot of traction even before its official launch in India as people in the USA started preaching (yes, I mean preaching!) about its benefits and how people are meeting their mentors from Fortune 500 companies and giving examples on how they have turned it into business. Articles like these (mentioned below) were just the beginning of the marketing of the "Hot Apps" with many influencers on Instagram endorsing Clubhouse and conducting "meetings" on it.

The Hand of FOMO

I was also in a mindset where my fear of not being the first to experience something new in tech, especially when I had the opportunity to do it. To give you a background on my experience with technology and apps: I owned a Windows phone (my first phone ever!) from the age 19 to 21, did not have a Facebook and Instagram account until I was 20 and came to know about Snapchat around that time and used it when I was 22 (I mean, can you blame me? I owned a Windows phone for god's sake!). It's not that I hated Windows phone, it was a no-nonsense one and free from all the data collection by Google, my point being, I experienced the latest in tech much after my peers did and that FOMO was always there on the back of my mind. Being a computer science student, I only knew how these applications worked theoretically but never had a first-hand experience myself.

When clubhouse announced that they will be launching an Android app, my next stop was at the PlayStore waitlisting myself to even download the app. Now reflecting back, this sounds too desperate, but it is what it is. Once they launched, the app was downloaded and I created my account almost immediately. I thought that this would be it, I can now finally find a Fortune 500 mentor to take my career to next level. But, it isn't always as simple as it sounds, I still had to wait for a couple more days for someone to accept and invite me in. I knew that this was an invite-only app, but a tiny part of me longed to be an exception. After two days, I was in, able to access the discussion rooms, by topic, and then slowly the reality set in.

Experiencing the Reality

The first thing I did as soon as I joined was to follow Elon Musk. With that, I got a couple of suggestions based on the topics I chose while signing up and quickly followed them as well. On the first day, I joined a couple of rooms where they were talking about tech products and the latest developments in the field. For the first fifteen minutes, I tried to concentrate and grasp as much as I could, but the amount of attention I had to pay without looking at anything and relying only on my auditory cues turned out to be frustrating after half an hour and I called it day. Over the next couple of days, a lot of my friends joined and I started following them as well. The social media experience until now was "the more the better" for me. Turns out in Clubhouse it's the opposite. The amount of notifications you get in just an hour is baffling. If you have ever been a part of this app you'd understand my woes. "You can turn off the notifications if you want" is what everyone suggested, but that's not the point at all. What if a discussion room opens up where there are good conversations going? How will I know if some friends of mine have started a group and are having fun? These were the thoughts running through my mind continuously, just with the thought of switching off notifications. There was another problem I faced, in addition to the notifications; Content.

There are interesting discussion rooms there, but getting notified or finding them is a heinous task. In the one week, I have been on it, I took an active part in 3 or 4 recreational discussion rooms, but I came across a countless number of "Shoot your Shot", "Just Adult Talks", "Listening to Music while working", "Working day rant" rooms. The worst part is that I do not know anyone in those rooms, just one person who follows the same topic or same channel is enough for you to get flooded with notifications and suggestions to join these rooms. The low quality of content and haphazard suggestions makes it nearly impossible to make Clubhouse a part of your productivity routine.

The Aftermath

In just one week, trying to curate my feed accordingly, I gave up, uninstalled the app, and honestly didn't care if I would find a Fortune 500 mentor. At this point, after 6 months, I cannot answer the question - Why was I so obsessed with finding a Fortune 500 mentor? Upon great reflection, I understood that I was influenced by their marketing so much that I assumed that being on this app will somehow change my career and life, without me actually putting an effort into it. Finally with the halt of notifications, after a month I checked up on my friends asking them about their experience on Clubhouse. Turns out, most of them uninstalled the app and the others simply muted everything and hardly open it.

This led me to explore the "Why so?" part of the experience. My perception was that I had too little of an attention span to sit and concentrate on people talking. After researching about the app and the general consensus of people, I did a deep dive into the topic of product marketing and strategy, and the psychology of consumers for software products. Although I am no expert on these topics, I found some things interesting that have led to a decline in interest in this app.

The Learning

Clubhouse did not cater to solving a problem

The software products in this age intend to solve a common problem that people face every day or at the very least enhance existing products by providing some invaluable features. For example, consider Whatsapp and Telegram. Both are messaging services over the internet, the major difference being the privacy features between these two. In the case of Clubhouse, an audio-only platform is something that costs people their time.

Content moderation

With social media apps like Instagram and Facebook there's a lot of content monitoring to the posts that are uploaded. It is possible to do so because the content posted is mostly static and is available for long periods of time. As a result, anything malicious can be contained by flagging, reporting or even algorithmically. In case of Clubhouse, the rooms are a live feed and are present for very short periods of time. Though there are options to report a room and a person, a detailed analysis of the reason of reporting cannot be ascertained.

Time vs Result

Any consumer uses a product with a return in mind. That return might be anything, a bliss of passing time by doing nothing, gain some knowledge or be productive. Most of the products are created with that end goal as a focus point. Here, an audio version of messaging with a group of strangers or even with your friends can bring you joy or productiveness for a short period of time, no matter how long you spend using the app. For you to keep coming back here the content and feed should be interesting enough to lure them back time and time again. Thereby the result people expect over time flatlines decreasing the engagement.

The ease of integrating into people's lives

The app launched in the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 and quickly gained popularity as people had enough time on their hands and were open to new possibilities. As we adjust to our new-normal and are trying to get back to work, it's very difficult to incorporate this into our routine or even browse through it for fun. There's only so many things a person can fit into his or her routine.

With these learnings in mind, I understand that an audio only app could be a great add-on to a topic based forum like GoodReads or Medium where there is a purpose to each conversation and topics can be defined leading to a better and safe space to exchange ideas and make great conversations.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or in the Forum: Clubhouse: Is it constructive or a time pass medium? | The Sine Tales

Sindhu.