Clubhouse is a new type of social network based on voice—where people around the world come together to talk, listen and learn from each other in real-time.
I like the way the app is described on Play Store, “It’s like an impromptu dinner party at your neighbor’s house, the bar down the street where all your friends go.
Personally, I see Clubhouse as mostly for introverts who also want to connect with new people but prefer to hide behind their screens. By the way, I am introvert. Lol
Now before we talk about the differences between “Clubs” and “Houses”, it is important to start with a feature called “Rooms“.
Rooms
The main feature of the audio-social app is real-time virtual “rooms” in which users can communicate with each other using audio.
Rooms are categorised based on differing levels of privacy.
- “Open rooms” can be joined by anyone on Clubhouse, and all rooms default to this setting on creation.
- In “Social rooms,” only users followed by the moderators are allowed to join.
- Users need to receive an invite from the moderators to join “closed rooms.”
Within a room, there are three sections: the “stage,” “followed by the speakers,” and “others in the room.” The profile picture and name of each user present in a room are displayed in the appropriate section.
When a user creates a room, they are assigned the role of “moderator” which gives them the power to call users to the stage, mute users, and remove speakers from the stage.
The moderator role is denoted by a green star that appears next to the user’s name. When a user joins a room, they are initially assigned to the role of a “listener” and cannot unmute themselves.
Listeners can notify the moderators of their intent to join the stage and speak by clicking on the “raise hand” icon.
Users who are invited to the stage become “speakers,” and gain the ability to unmute themselves. Users can exit a room by tapping the “leave quietly” button or the peace sign emoji.
What are Clubs?
At the Clubhouse, clubs are user communities that regularly discuss a common interest. Many clubs are present in Clubhouse representing a wide array of topics and users can find clubs by name under the search tab. A club consists of three categories of users – “Admin”, “Leader”, and “Member”.
- Members can create private rooms and invite more users into the club.
- Leaders have all the privileges of a member, also authorised to create/schedule club-branded open rooms.
- An admin can modify club settings, add/delete users, change user privileges and create/schedule any type of room.
Types of Clubs
There are three types of clubs – “Open”, “By Approval”, and “Closed” for membership.
Any user can join an open club by pressing the “Join The Club” button on the club profile. In case of approval, users need to apply and wait for membership by pressing the “Apply To Join” button on the club profile. The admins of the respective club are privileged to accept or reject the user’s request.
In a closed club, membership is limited to users selected by the club admin. All users of a club will be notified when a public room within the club is created. The club creation is restricted to active users and whoever creates the club will become the club admin.
Eligible users can create a club by going to their profile, press the “+” sign located in the “Member of” section. Clubs in which a user is a member are shown on their profile page.
What are Houses?
A new announcement from Paul Davison, a Clubhouse Co-founder, reveals the platform now has a new features, called Houses, that allows any person or group to create their own curated “House” within the app.
Think of Houses as private hallways just for your favourite people. You can drop in anytime, hop from room to room, catch up with friends, and meet their friends.
Houses usually have regular meetup times, and everyone gets to nominate a few friends, so the House grows through people you trust. Or, you can keep it closed if you like.
“Houses” are more intimate than Clubs, as they’re built through invitations and anyone in a House can start or schedule a room within the House, whereas Clubs are more public and open for anyone to request to join.
“See Houses,” Co-founder Davison writes, “as a dinner party with your friends, and Clubs as the events and shows you go to in your town.” “Each House will have its own “personality, culture and content moderation rules.”
“Houses” is currently in Beta testing, and the company says users can sign up to create Houses though approval will be slow as it hopes to learn from feedback and tweak the feature accordingly.
The sign-up page to create a House asks you to enter your name and Clubhouse username. From there, you’re asked what you would call your House, how you would describe it to others and who you would want to invite to be “Founding Members” of your House.
