Spotify chases Clubhouse with Locker room

The charm of online voice conversations launched by Clubhouse also affects Spotify, which integrates voice only live with the Locker room app.

On March 17, 2020, during the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic, two American ex-Google engineers, Paul Davison And Rohan Seth, officially launch Clubhouse, a social network that is based exclusively on live streaming audio content, without the use of texts (apart from the possibility of inserting a short introductory bio), likes or comments, photos, videos or private messages.

One year after its launch, it is safe to say that the idea of ​​Clubhouse has had an impact great success:the downloads of the app were more than thirteen million worldwide, 400 thousand in Italy alone, where Clubhouse became popular in the first months of 2021 with the "invitation hunt".

Clubhouse was born and is still available only for iOS devices and exclusively by invitation:once entered, a user has the ability to invite only a limited number of people to join the platform.Despite the initial problems relating to regulatory aspects and to the rights of European users in the beta phase, the Clubhouse boom was especially evident in Italy, the second country in which the app is having the most success after the United States.

Spotify will also soon have its own Clubhouse

The success of Clubhouse, which last January allowed the value of the platform to exceed one billion dollars, has obviously not gone unnoticed by technological giants such as Twitter, Telegram, Facebook, LinkedIn and also Spotify, who announced the launch of services and features based on only on the voice.

Spotify, in fact, which has also been launched on the music market for some time podcasts, recently announced the acquisition of Betty labs, a startup he created Locker room, an app based on voice interactions dedicated mainly to sports.With the integration of live audio content, the music streaming service completes its strategy to establish itself as Audio content reference service, maintaining the commitment to develop future audio formats taken during the event Spotify stream on last February, enriching the offer for creators.

In the coming months, therefore, Spotify will expand the focus of Locker room conversations to also music and culture.Initially, Locker Room will continue to be available on the App store, remaining separate from the main Spotify app, even if it is renewed (for example, the monetization functionality of the rooms as well as theirs registration for subsequent conversion into podcast), probably renamed and also made available for Android.

According to the online magazine The verge who reported the news:“Spotify sees the ideal live audio option for creators who want to connect with audiences in real time, whether to preview an album, perform a performance, or host a Q&A session.”

Technological giants and the charm of the voice

The charm of online voice conversation is affecting all the main social networks. Telegram was among the first to implement voice only functions with Voice chat 2.0 and also Facebook, after the introduction of thematic rooms a few months ago which, however, are based on video calls, has hinted that it is working on an audio-only chat service.

Twitter is perhaps Clubhouse's fiercest competitor and has already developed voice-only functions for streaming with Spaces, available for iOS, Android and which is now also preparing to arrive desktop version, thus opening up the possibility for professional podcasters to use their equipment directly from the main workstations.

The latest to be inspired by the audio streaming model are LinkedIn And Discord, both launched in the implementation of functions very similar to the Clubhouse rooms.

Meanwhile Clubhouse…

Meanwhile, Clubhouse continues its run.During the international Clubhouse roadshow which started from Italy, the Town hall held by the two founders of the app, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, have finally given a deadline for the launch of the version for Android, which should take place by the summer.

Plus, after having it announced last January, he finally left Payments, the monetization service for creators.Active only in beta mode, initially everyone will be able to send money but not everyone will be able to receive it.In this first phase, Clubhouse's objective is to collect feedback and optimize the system.