The invitation-only social media app Clubhouse is growing in popularity but has some serious competition from Twitter, which is testing its own social audio app, Twitter Spaces. Users seem to be loving it.
Facebook is also reportedly developing a Clubhouse copycat but Twitter’s version is closer to a rollout. Of course, Clubhouse has had a great headstart — and funding. It has a $1 billion valuation.
With Clubhouse, users can drop in and out of any room as passive listeners. But Clubhouse has faced some pushback, accused of being a culture vulture and making money off the backs of Black people.
“I keep telling people, we go on Clubhouse, we making another one of them a billionaire,” hip-hop mogul Master P said in an Instagram video posted by DJ Akademiks. “We just did it! Just for Clubhouse. We need to create stuff like that to where we control the narrative and we’re able to put the money back in our community and our culture.”
Recently, Clubhouse had to address data privacy concerns over possible Chinese spying.
Twitter Spaces, which is still in limited beta testing, seems to have ironed out some of the kinks that have bothered Clubhouse users. For example, Twitter users say they can start a space and then invite up to 10 people to speak in their space to share thoughts, send emojis, among other things.
Users also can select who can join with speaking privileges and share transcriptions of the conversation.
Folks on Twitter seem to like the concept and inclusivity of Space, rather than Clubhouse’s excluvisty.
“Used Twitter spaces for 13 seconds, Clubhouse is f*cked,” declared Shaan Puri in a tweet. Puri is the senior director of product, mobile gaming, and emerging markets at Twitch, a video live streaming service for gamers operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.
Others, however, aren’t too sure Spaces can overtake Clubhouse. “People are building crazy follower counts on CH, Twitter is super hard to do that. Twitter spaces would need its on algo for room recos,” tweeted one user.
But another replied, “Follower count on clubhouse means nothing. 1M followers is just vanity, all that matters is how many ppl show up to listen. People with 1M followers hover at 1k-2k ppl in the room”
Many seemed to agree with Puri. One person posted, “1,000% agree. Clubhouse is a great new feature for Social, but it’s not going to emerge as its own platform. Twitter already has the users and they’ve built a better version of Clubhouse in no time…”
Added another, “Signal to noise ratio on Clubhouse is trash. With Spaces, the experience is curated to include only the folks the user cares to hear from. I think this is Twitter’s Stories moment. It won’t kill CH but Spaces will be good enough for many and could seriously stunt CH’s growth.”
“One advantage that Twitter has is that it was designed, from its inception, around the notion of ‘now moments,’ generating an instant pulse of what’s happening in culture. This is something that’s fundamental to the real-time nature of social audio, which makes Twitter Spaces feel native to the Twitter experience,” Ad Age reported.
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Right now, Clubhouse remains the dormant force with 2 million users and rising, Social Media Today reported. But as everyone knows, things can change fast in tech.
