The last stake of Clubhouse, that invitation system that many didn’t like, is about to fall. A date is still missing, but an indication has arrived
The most popular “virtual square” of early 2021 is preparing to open its doors to everyone. It was announced by the same company that manages the social voice Clubhouse, for a long period available only to Apple users and still accessible only by invitation of users already enrolled. A limitation for some meaningless that ended up increasing the wait for those who would have wanted to be part of it.
The first of the two limitations for Clubhouse membership has recently ended in shards. The Android app arrived in May, and was immediately a hit with over 2 million installs in just over two weeks after being released on the Play Store. That leaves the other, that of the invitation system, which has yielded a series of negative reviews on both Apple’s and Google’s virtual store, signed by the many users disappointed that they were finally able to download the app, convinced that they were one step away from getting to know the popular voice social, only to find out that they couldn’t sign up without an invitation.
Clubhouse with no selection at the entrance
A choice, that of limiting the number of members for a long time, that Clubhouse recently explained to have been intentional, despite the fact that similar proposals by well-established giants such as Twitter with Spaces have not been long in coming and have potentially subtracted a slice of users that, with traditional registration methods, could have signed up and become loyal to Clubhouse.
Clubhouse has motivated the choice with the intention of offering a platform that was reliable and as bug-free as possible, an approach quite different from those to which technology has accustomed us over the years. For the social during the start-up phase the growth of the community has been less important than the stability of the platform, and avoiding dozens or hundreds of reports of anomalies and problems has been the priority for the managers.
It seems however that on this front a sufficient degree of maturity and solidity has been reached to allow the opening of Clubhouse to the crowd that is eager to know and appreciate the social of the moment. After all, the numbers reached on Android environment after a couple of weeks of publication of the app on the Play Store have left insiders stunned, testifying to the following collected by Clubhouse in a few months since its foundation.
If all goes well, the doors of Clubhouse will open during the summer without selection at the entrance. The time that separates the platform from the “free everyone” will be used to strengthen the foundations of the new social voice and prepare it for what could be an onslaught of millions of new users in a short time.
The opening to large numbers of Clubhouse comes at a time when the competition has gone on the counterattack. Especially Twitter, which has already come up with a method – Ticketed Spaces – to allow content creators to monetize their efforts, and on this aspect Clubhouse seems to be slightly behind despite having launched a similar monetization system.