Exploring the Clubhouse / Podcasting Venn Diagram

Clubhouse has made a big splash over the past few weeks. If you haven’t been on it yet, Clubhouse is an iOS-only, mobile-only, audio-based chat room experience. Lots of “onlys” as of now. There are plans for the app to expand to Androids users. No words yet on a desktop experience. The audio-only nature of Clubhouse is here to stay, which is exciting to me as a long-time audiophile. 

Are you on Clubhouse yet? The app is currently in a beta program and is only accessible via an invite from someone already on the app. Clubhouse founders made a bet on the temptation of exclusivity and it seems to have worked. I had heard of the app months before I was extended a beta invite. I joined in November when there were only 80,000 or so people on the app. According to Backlinko, there were 10 million users as of February 22nd. That’s up from 600,000 in December and 2 million in mid-January. It’s safe to say Clubhouse is growing exponentially.

But let’s back up. Audio-only chat rooms. What’s the draw? 

Clubhouse says that it’s “a new type of social product based on voice [that] allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people around the world.” Essentially, users can open the app and either start their own room to discuss whatever’s on their mind, or they can hop in and out of other, already-in-progress rooms. There are a bunch of celebrities who are active on Clubhouse, which seems to be a draw for many users. There are celebs in the traditional sense — Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, Drake, Ashton Kutcher — as well as new media “celebs” who offer marketing, business, and even content creation advice. Elon Musk has made a few appearances. Joe Rogan has been in a few rooms here and there. 

Read more: The 25 Best Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Episodes

The proposed draw is that you can be in the same relatively intimate chat room as one of the above celebs (and many more). And that you could potentially be in direct conversation with one or many of them, too. 

Podcasters have quickly flocked to Clubhouse to see what all the fuss is about. I trace a lot of the podcast rush to the app back to November, when Espree Devora became the face of the app. Espree is a popular podcaster who’s been in the game for a while and knows just about everyone in the industry. Clubhouse is big on community engagement and fostering a sense of togetherness among its users. One of the ways they manifest this idea is by choosing one Cluhouser per month to grace the app’s icon. 

Podcasters hanging out on Clubhouse makes sense. It’s audio-based, which is our medium. It’s short-form, which is how most podcasters operate. And it’s new media, which we are drawn to. But that’s really where the similarities stop.

While podcasters can (and at this point, maybe should) be on Clubhouse to connect with other podcasters, there are many differences between the two mediums. Let’s explore some of them. 

Clubhouse is very much a departure in content creation workflow for podcasters. The most obvious difference between the two is that podcasting is created as on-demand for listeners. It is created in advance to be consumed whenever a listener pleases; even months or years after the episode’s initial launch date. Clubhouse, however, is live. It’s a listen or leave it experience. While recording is possible, it’s not built into the app. Most creators looking to record their Clubhouse sessions will set up a mic to their phone and hit “record.” (There are more tech savvy ways to do this that will create a better-sounding end product, but we won’t go into that here). Creators who are recording Clubhouse rooms are encouraged to let listeners know that the room is being recorded because it may disincentivize some folks from participating in certain discussion topics or with the same intensity. There are rumblings that Clubhouse has plans to make a recording feature more obvious, and more easily accessible for creators and listeners. 

Will this affect how creators create on Clubhouse? I think it offers an opportunity to bring people into the conversation in real time. It could be a big opportunity for advice shows, call-in sports podcasts, and others of similar ilk. Castbox has a feature like this that has been in use for a while that didn’t take off nearly as swimmingly as Clubhouse. But at this point, speculating on the future of Clubhouse’s recording features is just that: speculation.

Let’s talk a bit about accessibility for d/Deaf or HoH folks. As of now, Clubhouse is audio-only and live, which means no closed captioning and no transcription services. This Forbes article, written by Steven Aquino, explores how far the inaccessibility of Clubhouse extends. Aquino writes: “It’s clear accessibility wasn’t a priority to Clubhouse’s founders or engineers. Perhaps they have accessibility somewhere on their product roadmap, but it still disappoints. Accessibility is never something teams can ‘bolt on’ after the fact because they don’t know any better or are too preoccupied with shipping a thing on time.”

Contrast this with the drive for accessibility in podcasting, which, while still leaves a lot to be desired, at least is out there in the open. Creators know that the best way to make their shows accessible to all is to create transcripts. They know that, when creating video elements to go along with audio, that closed-captioning is a must. Do they always comply? No. Like I said, there’s much to be desired. 

Read more: How to make your podcast more accessible using transcripts

Clubhouse rewards experimentation in show types, whereas podcasting rewards consistency and building a relationship with your core base of listeners. When I consult on podcasts with creators, my main pieces of advice are that they should strive for consistency, transparency, and splitting their content up into seasons. If I consulted with creators on Clubhouse (maybe we’ll get there one day), all of that would be out the window. For podcasters, pick a day of the week and publish your show on that day. Stick to that day no matter what. Unless you are transparent with your listeners as to why you, for whatever reason, weren’t able to publish an episode that day. Splitting your content into seasons allows podcasters a chance to breathe; to assess their analytics, bank some content, and even switch up the premise of the show entirely if they decide to do so (as long as they’re transparent about it). 

On Clubhouse, however, since we’re just at the beginning of the app’s presence in an almost mainstream sense, none of the above applies. In fact, testing out different room headlines is advised. I run a weekly Clubhouse room with SquadCas.fmt, the remote recording app, where we share remote podcast recording tips with listeners. The room is going on its 10th week and each week, we’ve tried out a different headline, a different description, and different emojis. We’ve also tried out different formats. It’s simply too soon to tell what is definitely the way to go with Clubhouse content creation. Therefore… experiment, experiment, experiment.

Clubhouse continues to generate buzz all over social media and WOM (word of mouth) landscapes. To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I’m on it, I use it, and I have a good number of followers who tune in for my live rooms, but I still don’t know. 

I plan to continue thinking critically about audio on the whole and reporting on my thoughts. I do think that audio, whether it’s through Clubhouse, Mark Cuban’s recently announced Fireside, Twitter’s newly announced Spaces, or the growth of podcasts, will continue to be front and center in media and creative spaces. I’m excited to see where that takes us. 

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