Everyone Is Talking About Clubhouse: Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk and $2,000 an Hour for a Room Moderator
An unexpected boom in the social media industry.
The main internet trend of February was the new voice social network Clubhouse. Available only on iOS and only by invitation, the app was downloaded by about 8 million users within a month.
Stanford graduates and former Google developers Paul Davison and Rohan Seth launched Clubhouse in April 2020. They bet on live conversation in interest-based rooms with a ban on recording conversations.
Anyone can start a new discussion, and their followers are notified about it. Users also see rooms that their friends are visiting and can join them. In this way, a chain reaction turns a mini-discussion into a real interest-based club.
Some want not only to listen but also to speak — for this, you need to "raise your hand" and wait for the moderator's approval. Don't interrupt, stay on topic and don't swear — you'll fit in and get hooked quickly.
Clubhouse became popular after Elon Musk's visit in early February. He announced a talk on his Twitter account, which has 46 million followers, and the conversation had to be published on YouTube against the rules, as the buzz exceeded the room's limit of 5,000 people.
Musk even invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Clubhouse. The Kremlin called the proposal "very interesting" and promised to respond later, citing the need to "first figure it out".
After the Tesla head, Mark Zuckerberg joined the social network, and Facebook began work on a rival to Clubhouse. Following the billionaires, celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Jared Leto, Drake and others spoke in the app.
Amid its global popularity, users from the Russian-speaking internet began registering on Clubhouse. According to Forbes, there are already more than 200,000 of them on the network. The publication writes that in-demand moderators in Russian-language Clubhouse earn $200-$2,000 an hour depending on the audience.
Users from Ukraine have also embraced the trend. Among many others, the following have registered on Clubhouse:
- musician and former leader of the Voice party Svyatoslav Vakarchuk
- co-founder of monobank and former Cabinet minister Dmytro Dubilet
- Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko
- esports commentator Vitaly Volochay (v1lat)
- People's Deputies from Servant of the People Roman Hryshchuk and Anna Purtova
- journalists Myroslava Gongadze and Vasyl Holovanov
Venture fund Andreessen Horowitz invested $100 million in Clubhouse at a valuation of the social network at $1 billion. The project does not yet earn any revenue.
Clubhouse co-investor Max Skibinsky said that "tips" for speakers will soon appear as a way to monetize. According to him, the developers are planning development several years ahead and are not afraid of competition. Invitation-only access will remain until the app exits beta, and an Android app is already in development.
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