This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 3, 2021 - May 9, 2021

When live audio app Clubhouse started making waves locally at the end of last year, it did not make sense to some people. “So, it’s like radio lah!” was a common quip when the app’s concept was explained.

But Clubhouse is not like radio at all, at least in terms of accessibility. For one thing, it is currently available only on Apple iOS, with an Android version set to be released in the next few months. On top of that, one has to receive an invitation to join the platform before they are able to register and participate.

Some may have thought it elitist but the FOMO (fear of missing out) factor still won the day, making it incredibly popular in a short space of time.

FOMO played a major role in Clubhouse’s marketing and visibility, says Ramakrishnan C N, partner at Entropia Group and its head of Entropia Extended Reality. In fact, this inner circle mentality, coupled with celebrity endorsements and participation, made Clubhouse appear extremely appealing, making people desperate to have access.

“The key thing that’s driving this whole phenomenon is the celebrities and big names on the app. People like Elon Musk and Tony Fernandes are on it and users find themselves in the same audio room, which in itself is a ‘wow’ factor,” says Ramakrishnan.

Dr Rachel Gong, senior research associate at Khazanah Research Institute (KRI), says she too initially saw audio apps as being similar to radio but she quickly realised the major difference between the two is the participation factor. With radio, people call in and only one or two calls make it on air, whereas with live audio apps, users have the opportunity to verbally interact with people who share similar interests.

“In the early days of the internet, there were paid telephone chat rooms called chatlines, where you could have a conversation with random people over the phone. This allowed people to get that personal interaction beyond what radio offered, as well as meet people interested in a topic that, perhaps, their friends weren’t interested in. Live audio apps are an evolution of that,” she says.

Professor Bradley C Freeman, head of the Department of Communication at Sunway University’s School of Arts, breaks it down further by explaining that media content has evolved over the years to the point where video is the content of choice. But over time, especially last year, when the whole world was forced to go online for hours to work and connect with the rest of the world, new maladies, such as screen fatigue, have emerged and become a widespread problem.

“Audio apps and audio-based information and entertainment allow for in-depth delivery of content and discussions without creating eye strain. All the advantages of radio are now present in the new line of audio apps and, in many cases, with fewer commercials. Also, audio content is cheaper to make than videos,” he says, adding that this makes it possible to create more content for the same amount of money.

“If you think about it, the first sense we have as humans is hearing. So, we are naturally curious about the sounds around us — we cannot turn our ears off — and we can do other things while listening.”

Ernst & Young Advisory Services Sdn Bhd technology consulting partner Ryan Sim agrees. He says the pandemic has changed how people interact with each other and consume content. Following a prolonged period of physical distancing, the need to socialise and interact has pushed people  to explore new ways of doing so and audio apps are one of the many channels that have emerged.

“In fact, audio apps — podcasts such as Audible as well as YouTube and Facebook — have been around for a while now. As the speed of connectivity improves exponentially and digital devices become ubiquitous, content has grown richer, audiences have widened and audio apps have gone from being consumption-based to interactive,” he says.

“In this new wave of audio apps, the speakers no longer carry out one-way monologues on topics they want to talk about; it’s now interactive, social. Digitalisation has made this much more appealing with critical mass.”

But are live audio apps just a novelty that will fizzle out eventually? Industry experts do not think so. In fact, Sim deems live audio apps as a new frontier that will evolve over time. He points out that first, there will be a wave of ideas that others will hastily copy. But eventually, some of the players will fade away.

This is expected to happen soon. For instance, other audio apps are expected to gain traction in the Android space in the time it takes Clubhouse to release its Android version.

Twitter has launched its own live audio app function called Twitter Spaces, which is currently going through live beta testing and may soon be available to all users. At end-March, Spotify announced its acquisition of Locker Room, a sports-focused audio app, to build its own live audio feature to compete with Clubhouse.

At around the same time, LinkedIn announced an audio experience expansion on its platform to provide professionals with more communication avenues. And the most recent announcement is from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who revealed the company’s plans to enter the social audio space.

Freeman opines that the competitive live audio app marketplace will decide who stays and who goes. Although Clubhouse is generating a lot of buzz right now, if it does not handle its expansion correctly, it may fizzle out. 

“Audio podcasting will be with us for the foreseeable future. What we really need to see is smart speakers getting smarter. When we can call out for precisely what we want to hear, we will be doing even more of it and finding things that are of real interest to us,” says Freeman.

When a platform has a substantial user base, there will be room for marketing as well. EY’s Sim says looking at the growing number of members on Clubhouse, such apps are ready-made platforms for marketing, both direct and indirect.

“Like all other free social platforms, the audiences are really the subject of trade and they are willing participants, to a certain extent, in order to enjoy the benefits. Audio apps will join Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter as channels for corporate branding and presence, effectively segmenting, targeting and attracting businesses and their customers alike,” he points out.

“Imagine a corporation running a recruitment programme via an audio app, or a consulting firm executing its marketing campaign on an audio app. These apps could well be the platform for businesses to be heard by or to hear from their customers. Governments or the public sector can also utilise such platforms to solicit public opinions or feedback on their policies and programmes.”

For the benefit of both the platform owner and content creators, there has to be a way to monetise the apps because running a platform of such scale requires a huge investment in terms of infrastructure, operations and content creation. Sim says the decision to monetise depends mainly on the content creators’ own interests.

“Some may keep them as free self-marketing platforms, some may leverage them as channels for service or learning delivery, while others may wish to offer them as a form of give-back or channels of expression. In future, there may be a segregation between free engagements or sharing versus in-depth intimate workshops that offer better personalisation, engagement and quality of outcomes,” he adds.

“These could then be channels for advisory or learning by professionals and educators. It’s a delicate balancing act. If a platform disregards pay-to-join or subscription options, it may limit its contribution to a more leisure or hobbyist mindset, which may affect the quality of the content.”

In early April, Clubhouse wrote a blog post about the new “Clubhouse Payments” feature, which allows users to send money to their favourite creators or speakers on the platform. Its co-founder Paul Davison reportedly said the start-up wants to focus on direct monetisation for creators rather than advertisements.

Entropia’s Ramakrishnan agrees that advertisements are probably not the optimal solution for audio apps as they may turn people away from the platform. But audio apps can definitely be a good platform for marketing and to build a company’s or an individual’s brand. 

“I’ve seen this with AirAsia because its top management, like Tony Fernandes, is on the platform talking openly about refund issues directly to consumers. And the nature of the platform allows this interaction to be genuine because it cannot be scripted. So, this is a good public relations exercise,” he says.

While there are similarities between radio and live audio apps, the strategy a brand uses to market itself on these platforms is very different. Ramakrishnan says radio does not require active participation and hence, it’s normal for radio to air jingles that subconsciously grab people’s attention. Whereas live audio apps fall in the grey area between active and passive participation, requiring a little more thought in marketing strategies.

“A user cannot be sitting passively in a Clubhouse room and expecting to learn anything. Users have to be active in the sense of paying attention, so that’s probably the area brands should look at — using audio to do a little more absorbing for the brand’s consumers and building a strategy around it.

“It can’t be a forced fit or an advertisement coming in while a user is absorbing an ongoing conversation. It has to be very natively driven, such as what AirAsia is doing, and brands need to pay attention to these apps because they are going to evolve over time and the rise of active audio is imminent.”

In early February, Clubhouse was banned and blocked in China after people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Beijing used the platform to discuss uncensored and unfiltered topics such as the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen protest, the treatment of the Uighur minority, the crackdown in Hong Kong and China-Taiwan relations.

Roughly a month later, Oman cut off access to Clubhouse, claiming it was operating without a proper licence. Activists in that sultanate, however, fear it was simply an act of censorship. Even the usually temperate Thailand sent the app a warning not to break the law after there were conversations on its monarchy.

These restrictions may very well set a precedent for future audio apps, but only time will tell how countries will manage this phenomenon and clamp down on controversial conversations.

KRI’s Gong says since Clubhouse markets itself as a platform where no conversation is recorded and whatever is said on the platform is ephemeral, people feel like they can say what they think without consequences. “People find some sort of comfort in the perceived anonymity of the platform. While you do need to register, you don’t see each other’s faces, so it’s easy to have a sense of safety and security in not being visible, even though you’re being tracked.”

While these elements may seem like threats to some nations, some good does come out of it, she says. She points out that in Malaysia, the app is being used to have conversations with public figures such as Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin on Covid-19 vaccines and former Permodalan Nasional Bhd CEO Abdul Jalil Abdul Rasheed on fund management.

But she also notes that there is a gap in terms of policy on data — such as what data should be collected and kept — platform moderation and what netiquette (internet etiquette) should be observed. “We’re only starting to consider what it means to have a digital public space. There are a few organisations in the US that have started looking at this, but their concern is on protecting freedom of expression by trying to define what constitutes a public space online.

“Moderation will be another challenge. These audio apps can offer a space for angry rants that probably shouldn’t be public or be taken out of context because they can [result in] tension. Who is responsible for managing that?”

Clubhouse also provides an opportunity for creative release. There are various fan and topical groups available on the platform, from football clubs to storytelling, and even one on Harry Potter, where users may find fans debating wizarding law or just sharing the Harry Potter canon.

Ramakrishnan has experienced being part of an “escape room” game on Clubhouse, which was highly engaging. Although there were no visuals, he says the creators creatively relied on sound effects to move the story along.

“It’s quite cool because they basically ‘kill off’ people using sound effects when they are on stage and don’t answer questions correctly. It’s almost like a stage drama that used to air on radio decades ago. I feel this could be a very engaging way for brands to experiment, specifically with audio immersion.”

The rise of the modern day “radio” may not necessarily kill the video star, says Gong. Some audio conversations can be paired with video as well to allow a wider audience reach. This is seen with some podcasts, such as Song Exploder, which evolved into a Netflix series to complement the podcast.

Nevertheless, Freeman says, we have long needed a site where audio can be easily shared. Twitter and Facebook do not allow audio sharing, although Facebook did try but it didn’t catch on. Sites such as SoundCloud, Mixlr and Mixcloud tried focusing on audio content but never garnered the excitement that Clubhouse has.

“It is an opportunity to connect and network with people around the world, democratising access to knowledge and instant communication tools, helping students learn better and perhaps helping those who are less mobile, for instance, the elderly and people with different abilities, be better connected,” he says.

“Similar to other forms of social or digital media, we will need to be aware of the potential for information overload, the propagation of fake news, privacy issues, cyberbullying and peer pressure as well as the substitution of online interactions for offline, real relationships. Overutilisation may also cause sleep disruptions and severe distraction from other aspects of life.”

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.