Warning Signs for Clubhouse App as Latest Strategy Loses Audience

Everything You Need To Know in Less Than 50 Words

The audio platform Clubhouse is taking an exclusive approach to its focus on audio social meet-ups. While this shift gives users more control over their Clubhouse experience, it may not be enough to keep the platform from going under in the future.

Tell Me More

Clubhouse is a social media platform that allows users to share audio. You can invite other people and be invited into voice chat rooms, though there isn’t an option to send texts. The app became very popular during the height of the pandemic, but other platforms have since surpassed it.

Between January and May of this year, 3.8 million people installed Clubhouse globally, compared to 19 million the past year during the same period. This is a substantial drop and shows that the platform is struggling to maintain interest.

With this loss in interest, Clubhouse has also lost several key members recently, Aarthi Ramamurthy and Anu Atluru being the most concerning departures. Aarthi and Anu were investors in the app and had been working on the platform’s team for a long time before leaving.

Recent Changes

Clubhouse announced within the last month that it would be taking a more private approach to its audio social meet-ups. Previously, the app required that an existing member invite new members to join, and chat rooms were low-quality and difficult to navigate.

The app will integrate a new feature called “Houses”, almost confidential spaces you can only access with an invitation. This should give users more control to customize their experience on the app and interact with the people that they want.

While users can meet with their friends, the app is a live-streaming platform that encourages them to create content regularly. House appears to be a way for users to discover new people while reducing their number of poor experiences on the platform.

House member lists will be public, and many rooms will be publicly accessible, but House rooms themselves will be private. Users will be able to explore the “hallways” to discover new people and content, but they won’t be able to join unless they apply or contact the organizers.

What This Means

Clubhouse’s latest strategic shift has the potential to boost user engagement, but will it be enough to entice new users? What Clubhouse needs to do is boost engagement across the entire platform rather than limiting user experiences to select rooms. By limiting experiences to be more private, Clubhouse could prevent new users from engaging with and downloading the app.

Clubhouse is a niche platform and can flesh out its unique service to grow the platform for the coming years, However, this latest shift to a more private user experience could be a warning sign of the app’s downfall. Currently, the House feature is going through beta testing, and time will tell whether it proves a successful endeavor.

Source: Tech Gadgets Talk