Remember when clubhouses were all the rage back when they were commonly up trees? Yeah, those were the days. There was a time when Clubhouse was the Thing in social media circles – people would do anything to get invited to the app, with some even buying invites that sold for hundreds on eBay.

Well, those days are long gone. Perhaps such is the fate of overly-hyped apps, at least those that start independent only to be bought out by some big-shot company who end up knowing squat about how to properly run a social app. Recent reports suggest that Clubhouse is struggling to maintain relevance, which has led to a recent major shift in its strategy. Clubhouse is slowly moving away from structured programming and more into ‘Live Chilling’ and facilitating virtual hangouts.

When The Club Was Hot

As part of its latest move, Clubhouse is now testing private groups as a means to facilitate more intimate interaction in the app. Bloomberg reports:

“The feature, which previously went by the name Social Clubs and is now known as Houses, appeared on some users’ phones in recent weeks. On Wednesday, the functionality appeared to be removed from some phones after Bloomberg requested comment from Clubhouse, but it remained active for other users.”

Again, this would align with the afore-mentioned strategic shift, as Clubhouse attempts to recapture what once made it such a compelling platform, getting more users back to the app. Will it work? Could this really be a way to get more people to open up the app once more and now give a hoot about audio social?

Most likely not, but Clubhouse needs to try something.

As we wrote in an earlier piece, based on a report by Protocol, Clubhouse saw 3.8 million new installs between January 1st and May 31st of this year, compared to the 19 million installs during the same time just last year (2021), an 80% YoY decline. Clubhouse had also been steadily growing in India and other regions outside the US, which pointed to potential growth, but even those are now seemingly in decline as well. If Clubhouse, just as Facebook is trying to do, can’t ‘recapture the magic’, the curtains could soon be closing for the app, which, at one time, was valued at $4 billion.

Clubhouse is also trying new in-app tools and features, including Reactions within Rooms, which does add a bit of interaction, but might not be enough to really make a difference to reignite interest in the app. Facebook and Instagram offer the same, if not more if you look at them closely. Twitter Spaces isn’t really faring much better since the hype around audio social is generally fading away.

The Wrap

Though things may look grim, it’s not to say that Clubhouse is now useless. On the contrary, there will always be some level of value for the option, albeit being extremely niche. Don’t get us wrong, there are some great hosts and amazing broadcasters out there with oodles of quality content, it’s just that the general layout of audio social isn’t really in-line with their efforts, given the difficulty of its discovery and moderation.

Bottom line is that there’s still hope for Clubhouse fans, bolstered by some great shows that are worthy of support. The app relatively still garners a lot of interest, just that its pathway to staying relevant keeps getting more challenging. Clubhouse might continue to exist in the future, but its stability as a mobile app is no longer guaranteed. We could see Clubhouse transform into a solutions provider somewhere down the line.

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Sources 

https://bit.ly/3NgCqKZ