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After making a guest appearance on Clubhouse, a report from The New York Times says that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are planning on their own audio-chat app to rival Clubhouse.
Sources in a position of influence at Facebook confirm that their newest product revolves around expanding into more unique forms of communication, which has widely been interpreted as a venture into audio communication, the model on which Clubhouse is built.
If you're wondering what the fuss about Clubhouse is, that's probably because the social media app was launched just last year. It's invite-only. And it's home to a lot of controversies due to its lack of content moderation.
It has gained popularity recently and has had celebrity appearances from Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, Drake, Elon Musk, etc.
Facebook is not new to social media wars. Whenever an app rises ad threatens Facebook or its subsidiaries' dominance, they've been known to come up with a direct competitor. They launched Instagram stories to rival Snapchat and "short-videos," aka Reels, to curb the rise of TikTok.
At the same time, Twitter has been expanding its new Spaces audio feature to more people. Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour confirmed to The Verge’s Tom Warren that around 3,000 people were invited to test Twitter Spaces on Wednesday, while 1,000 users already had this feature enabled. Twitter Spaces works similarly to Clubhouse, in which users can create rooms to talk to other people in real-time.
If you’re interested in trying out Clubhouse, you can download the app for free on the App Store and reserve your username until you get an invitation from a friend.