Clubhouse: monetization, competitors, influencers
Clubhouse arrived at a perfect moment in our history. It is possible to have spontaneous conversations for the people stuck at home. His audio-only format is a virtue and the iOS only feature gives to the social vocal a touch of exclusivity even if it is close the release of an Android app. Is Clubhouse self referential? Maybe yes given the fact that in Clubhouse people talk about Clubhouse. Even the founders have a room, every sunday, thousands of Clubhousers attend a town hall with the app’s two cofounders, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. But there is a room for everyone even from Zuckenberg or Musk . Everyone who has an iPhone (kind of exclusive device) can be on Clubhouse.
Venture capitalists invested $100 million into the company, which they valued billion dollars (Facebook, Google, and Amazon took years to achieve that valuation.). Naturally, after the news broke, was discussed in a lot of rooms opened up on the app itself to discuss those figures. One professional investor remarked that he expected the company’s market cap to reach a hundred billion. Clubhouse has not yet a monetization model and it appears clear that founders are opening the app to Android users without exclusivity features with the aim to raise the user base and then they will find a monetization model.
MONETIZATION AND SOCIAL COMPETITORS
One possible model could be charging people to join some conversations, (I expect conversations with celebs, personalities, top executives, etc) but nothing is decided. In my opinion they have to set up hate speech therms in order to avoid any problem of the other platforms: if they act now they can avoid to act in the future with increasing costs. But they have to beware from the moves of Twitter Telegram and Facebook…
Twitter seems to be in high position to hassle Clubhouse. They launched Spaces which is the feature that every user can adopt to have closed vocal rooms among his contacts. Twitter is also thinking about a monetization model of the feature. Telegram with a new app release gave the chance to do vocal rooms among the users networks and it allows to record it. Facebook is thinking on how to act but Zuck will react very soon I think.
INFLUENCERS ON CLUBHOUSE
Everyone wants to make a good impression in Clubhouse and the vocal network is full of people wandering from room to room in search of interesting conversations. Now, with 10 million users and growing, if you want to use it for professional reasons, finding your niche on Clubhouse can take a lot of trial and error. The main way to navigate Clubhouse is by following other people and with this you have to do a curation job. The app recommends people based on your preferences and on who you follow which means that if you want to be followed by people in your target you need to follow their peers. Following the wrong people can lead to a deluge of useless push notifications. But who you have to follow in Clubhouse? Lists are pouring but this one taken from backlinko.com.
Of the top 20 accounts this list, six are venture capitalists, five are well-known entertainers, and three are Clubhouse employees. Here’s the last stats:
