- Silicon Valley’s latest obsession is an audio app for listening to (and joining) conversations about almost any topic under the sun.
- Clubhouse is already valued at $1 billion and has 2 million users, even though it’s only available by invitation.
- It’s easy to dismiss the app as a classic example of Silicon Valley hype getting ahead of itself, but that’s missing something important about Clubhouse.
I remember the exact moment I “got” Twitter. I was sharing a car ride in the spring of 2008 with Michael Arrington, the often dyspeptic blogger and TechCrunch founder, when he told me that every time he published an article on his web site he then posted a link to it on Twitter that could be seen by his 20,000 or so followers.
It was an ah-ha moment. Up to that point I had thought of Twitter as a no-revenue plaything for a group of Silicon Valley insider types having short-burst conversations about not much at all. I immediately understood it as a broadcast tool of vast potential, which is what it became. In fact, I used Twitter to great effect a few years later to market a book. As it got bigger and louder, and particularly as a certain noxious politician polluted its environs, I have tried half-heartedly to limit my time on Twitter ever since.
This all came to mind when, like so many others I know in the past few days, I broke down and joined Clubhouse, the no-revenue plaything for a group of Silicon Valley insider types and celebrities having seemingly unending audio conversations about everything under the sun.
