A new audio-chat based communication App Clubhouse has been gaining a lot of popularity lately because of which other companies such as Twitter have started entering this space. Another company that might hop on to the bandwagon is expected to be Facebook.
As per areport from NY Times citing sources familiar with the development, Facebook is working on a Clubhouse competitor to expand its reach into new forms of communication. As per the sources, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been interested in these forms of communication.
Facebook executives have reportedly ordered its employees to start creating a similar product to Clubhouse with identical functionality. The product is already in its early stages of development while the code name for the product is still yet to be finalized.
“We’ve been connecting people through audio and video technologies for many years and are always exploring new ways to improve that experience for people,” Emilie Haskell, a Facebook spokeswoman, said. Facebook is known for chasing the popular and catching up, keeping in mind when it introduced Instagram Reels after TikTok got banned in a couple of countries.
Read More: What is Clubhouse? Is it for the masses?
In regards to Clubhouse, the app has already been banned in China regarding content moderation issues. The app was launched in beta phase in April of 2020 and gained a lot of momentum during the lockdown period. Its continued rollout in May 2020 was valued at an estimated of $100 million with just 1500 users at that time. The app has been developed by Paul Davison, a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Rohan Seth, who is an ex-Google employee.
The app gained a lot of popularity due to its one-of-a-kind functionality where you can interact with people in Audio rooms where a group of people can talk about a certain topic. The popularity further increased when even Elon Musk went ahead to try the app. Unfortunately, the app is currently available only on iOS.