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Designer Clubhouse

December 9, 2020

Last night I joined my first Clubhouse call. It was organised by Marc Hermon, the title was Designer Hangout and I listened in for around two-hours.

It was a surreal experience. There were a lot of faces I recognised from Twitter on the call, but initially the idea that it's all happening in real time and that you can also contribute doesn't seem entirely real. Eventually, I chimed in with some thoughts about remote work and living in Australia vs. America then there was a pause when I waited to see if anyone had actually heard me.

The feeling I had post-call was similar to that of other great internet experiments where you are introduced to new people in real-time. App's like Be My Eyes, Chat Roulette, that one in the 2010's that let you play DJ music for friends (?), and more recently, Omegle. "Ohhhh THIS is what the internet is meant to be for!".

You follow people for ages on Twitter and never get to know them very well. In an hour on Clubhouse, you can actually begin to build a relationship with strangers on the other-side of the world. It's fantastic.

Discovery feels like the next problem to solve for Clubhouse. I get 5+ notifications a day about rooms I don't care about, but you can see there is a fairly clear pathway for sorting that out.

Rooms seems to be by career topic (e.g. design) or interest based (e.g. evidence aliens exist). Maybe LinkedIn by this thing, integrate it into their main app and ruin it for everyone?