2. iOS only
3. Invite only
4. Not ADA compliant (leaves out deaf folks)
5. Buggy
6. Centralized
7. You can't easily delete your account
8. Pushes hard to ingest your contacts, expanding their social graph
I personally tried it and deleted it. No thanks.
This is the #1 thing that new apps seem to do. Is it just a growth hack, or is there something nefarious about it?
For example, I find it mindblowingly irritating that Telegram, of all things, blasts a notification announcing you've joined, the instant you join, to every other Telegram user who has your number saved in their phone. You can't opt out of this. And that's without even allowing access to your own contacts!
Yes. It's a nefarious growth hack.
Even podcasts, which I'd argue are more accessible than live rambling, are not a mass market product after more than a decade of trying.
Will audio-only eat up video and text platforms? No. Video can provide much more rich info and text can be much quicker to read and in loud places. But I do think there is a spot for live audio-only content, just don't know how big it is and how that changes when the pandemic subsides.
I think the real challenge is on the listening end. I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would sit around listening to people talk. If there's important information I need, I'll read it or watch a Youtube video. Audio is the least useful medium to absorb info. I'm sure some people feel otherwise, but we haven't seen a success in this space yet, and not for lack of investment/trying.
I think many people listen to people talk, especially at conferences. Imagine a panel discussion: if one is not in the first few rows, the visual info is quite little (can't see facial expressions much) and so it's mostly audio.
I guess for me, I like listening to live conversation, where it has the unpredictability of where it will go. I like to watch live interviews on TV and yet believe that many of them are stale, scripted, and too short, vs CH which yes can be stale but rarely feel scripted or too short. What I like about interviews or live conversations is that things may arise that one wouldn't think to produce without the external stimulation.
I wonder if it hasn't succeeded before because it didn't have the initial crowd. CH is basically just group conversations and if I go to a party where I think the people are not interesting (or more so, famous), I may not be so excited to talk/listen. But if I go to a private party, almost like going to a TED conference, I'm quite interested to hear those people talk to each other and myself try to contribute if I can. That's what it is, based on the audience it initially curated, it kinda felt like being at a TED or other similar conference. I wonder how that changes over time. But still, it lets ad-hoc conversations arise, sometimes with combinations that have not really happened on other platforms, e.g., Shane Battier, former NBA player, asking a question to Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator. Again, sometimes the interactions bore me, but sometimes they thrill me, and that feeds to the variable ratio reward addiction mechanism of the app.
> Even podcasts, which I'd argue are more accessible than live rambling, are not a mass market product after more than a decade of trying.
In the U.S., 37% of Americans surveyed by Edison Research listened to at least one podcast during the last month. (It was 32% the previous year.) That means podcasts are about 50% more popular than Twitter or LinkedIn. Is that not a mass medium?
http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The...
I also think we'd see a big advertising industry around podcasts. I have to admit to not being an expert in that particular market, but it sure doesn't seem like podcasts have the scale of other consumer social media.
I think with Clubhouse it's not. The defining feature is the network and social interaction, the audio is the format in the same way that on Facebook it's text. We expect Facebook to support screen readers for their text posts, so I think it's reasonable to expect that Clubhouse do something for deaf users.
Whether they should be required to do this at an early stage or not is a different question in my opinion, but I think it's fair to consider eventual support the Right Thing To Do.
"I would like to recommend that we stop using Clubhouse. It has already been identified as one of the most inaccessibility platforms for individuals with disabilities. I am Deaf and I cannot access it - if it is going to continue to be used, it should have a transcript and coin giveaways should not happen unless it is on a platform that allows accessibility for all individuals with disabilities. It is a matter of time before Clubhouse catches up with accessibility but right now it is pretty much a fast moving platform because they aren't following accessibility requirements. This usually happens to new emerging companies and they move fast because they avoid accessibility. I hope @Spadaboom | BadgerDAO and @DeFiFry will give this some serious consideration and move to another platform that allows accessibility.- @Gabrielhaines is pretty good at this and could give some ideas for clubhouse alternatives."