Deleted Member 112605
Banned - Abuse of Staff
- May 9, 2010
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- 3,757
Not one single influencer is sad that the drop-in, audio-only social networking app, Clubhouse, passed away recently. I’m no influencer, but I’m also glad that Clubhouse descended to an early grave.
I would love to rant about all the reasons why I thought Clubhouse was a complete failure from a social networking perspective, but I’ll save that for another day. There’s something more pressing about the Clubhouse-era that needs to be addressed.
Only a few months ago, influencers, entrepreneurs, digital markers, comedians, “crypto-experts”, “branding specialists”, “con-artists”, and everybody in-between was going crazy on the Clubhouse hype-train. People were suggesting that Clubhouse was going to be as big as Twitter. People were having powerful, influential discussions in real-time. The app received Silicon Valley funding, billion-dollar valuations, celebrity endorsements… what more could you ask for? The app was a rare darling of the COVID age, and it was taking the tech space by storm.
Famous entrepreneur/influencer hybrids like Gary Vaynerchuk was one of the many people suggesting to their multi-million-follower fanbases that if you’re not on Clubhouse, you’re missing out on the next big thing.
And then the app died, and everybody forgot about it, and nobody mentioned its death.
That scares the shit out of me – not that Clubhouse died. I figured Clubhouse would die.
Clubhouse is one of the worst product ideas to catch the mainstream in such a long time. It turns out Silicon Valley was wrong. What truly scares me is this: Influencers do not take responsibility, and they’ll promote just about anything – no matter if it’s a good idea or not.
Now you may be asking yourself: “Who cares? It was a free app. If a free app dies, it doesn’t hurt anyone, right?”
Normally, I’d agree with you. If an influencer recommends a free app and then things fizzle out, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a public apology. Their followers aren’t likely expecting an apology, either.
However, I think in 10 years, Clubhouse will be seen as the first example in a case study concerning the dangerous lack of responsibility with influencers in the digital space. In the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs (and influencer boxing matches), celebrities are becoming more and more conscious of their ability to become crafty, digital snake-oil salesmen.
I’m not the first person to say this, and I won’t be the last, but a good percentage of the current tech climate is speculative. There are very few things that will have guaranteed utility in 10 years. There’s many upsides to some of the technology, and there’s a lot of risks. If a single tweet from Elon Musk can fluctuate the entire crypto market by 10%, you must consider the technology as speculative. It could be the future, yes, but in the current state, it’s speculative.
Unlike Clubhouse, these risks come at a cost. Things in the crypto world won’t be free to download in the App Store like Clubhouse.
By the way, you remember when I mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk, right? He was a huge advocate for Clubhouse. He suggested it was the future. Did you know that he recently launched an NFT project that he’s now selling to his followers? He now suggests that his NFT project is going to be the next big thing.
One of my biggest fears in the tech space over the next few years is the dangerous and lucrative opportunity for influencers to begin selling massively speculative and risky ideas to their followers under the guise that whatever they’re selling is a smart investment.
I don’t think these influencers (who are getting their followers to invest millions of dollars into their latest crypto-coin, NFT, etc), will ever accept the idea that they could be misleading their followers into bankruptcy. I’m not suggesting that influencers are 100% responsible for the actions of their followers, and I’m not suggesting that people are going to go bankrupt themselves by “investing” in some of the new tech projects. However, just know that there’s a good chance that these influencers will pretend like it never happened if it all goes bust – just like they did with Clubhouse.
If you’re overly optimistic about the current tech landscape, then I think you’re going to disagree with me on almost everything I said in this article. Fair enough.
If you’re neutral on the current technology, then I hope I’ve convinced you enough to be worried about the future state of influencers. The power they hold over their followers, and the newfound ability to create digital products overnight on the blockchain is a scary concept, to say the least.
If you’re pessimistic about what’s happening, then I think you already foresee an incoming disaster.
In any case, Clubhouse was a complete failure for many reasons, and influencers need to take a step back and re-evaluate their recommendations before they send them out to millions of people. Silicon Valley isn’t always right. Billion-dollar valuations can be wrong, and not everything is going to be “the next big thing”.
Originally posted on my blog a few days ago, but I figured I'd share this here.
What did you think of Clubhouse?
Did you use it? Do you think drop-in audio chat is something we'll see more of?
I would love to rant about all the reasons why I thought Clubhouse was a complete failure from a social networking perspective, but I’ll save that for another day. There’s something more pressing about the Clubhouse-era that needs to be addressed.
Only a few months ago, influencers, entrepreneurs, digital markers, comedians, “crypto-experts”, “branding specialists”, “con-artists”, and everybody in-between was going crazy on the Clubhouse hype-train. People were suggesting that Clubhouse was going to be as big as Twitter. People were having powerful, influential discussions in real-time. The app received Silicon Valley funding, billion-dollar valuations, celebrity endorsements… what more could you ask for? The app was a rare darling of the COVID age, and it was taking the tech space by storm.
Famous entrepreneur/influencer hybrids like Gary Vaynerchuk was one of the many people suggesting to their multi-million-follower fanbases that if you’re not on Clubhouse, you’re missing out on the next big thing.
And then the app died, and everybody forgot about it, and nobody mentioned its death.
That scares the shit out of me – not that Clubhouse died. I figured Clubhouse would die.
Clubhouse is one of the worst product ideas to catch the mainstream in such a long time. It turns out Silicon Valley was wrong. What truly scares me is this: Influencers do not take responsibility, and they’ll promote just about anything – no matter if it’s a good idea or not.
Now you may be asking yourself: “Who cares? It was a free app. If a free app dies, it doesn’t hurt anyone, right?”
Normally, I’d agree with you. If an influencer recommends a free app and then things fizzle out, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a public apology. Their followers aren’t likely expecting an apology, either.
However, I think in 10 years, Clubhouse will be seen as the first example in a case study concerning the dangerous lack of responsibility with influencers in the digital space. In the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs (and influencer boxing matches), celebrities are becoming more and more conscious of their ability to become crafty, digital snake-oil salesmen.
I’m not the first person to say this, and I won’t be the last, but a good percentage of the current tech climate is speculative. There are very few things that will have guaranteed utility in 10 years. There’s many upsides to some of the technology, and there’s a lot of risks. If a single tweet from Elon Musk can fluctuate the entire crypto market by 10%, you must consider the technology as speculative. It could be the future, yes, but in the current state, it’s speculative.
Unlike Clubhouse, these risks come at a cost. Things in the crypto world won’t be free to download in the App Store like Clubhouse.
By the way, you remember when I mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk, right? He was a huge advocate for Clubhouse. He suggested it was the future. Did you know that he recently launched an NFT project that he’s now selling to his followers? He now suggests that his NFT project is going to be the next big thing.
One of my biggest fears in the tech space over the next few years is the dangerous and lucrative opportunity for influencers to begin selling massively speculative and risky ideas to their followers under the guise that whatever they’re selling is a smart investment.
I don’t think these influencers (who are getting their followers to invest millions of dollars into their latest crypto-coin, NFT, etc), will ever accept the idea that they could be misleading their followers into bankruptcy. I’m not suggesting that influencers are 100% responsible for the actions of their followers, and I’m not suggesting that people are going to go bankrupt themselves by “investing” in some of the new tech projects. However, just know that there’s a good chance that these influencers will pretend like it never happened if it all goes bust – just like they did with Clubhouse.
If you’re overly optimistic about the current tech landscape, then I think you’re going to disagree with me on almost everything I said in this article. Fair enough.
If you’re neutral on the current technology, then I hope I’ve convinced you enough to be worried about the future state of influencers. The power they hold over their followers, and the newfound ability to create digital products overnight on the blockchain is a scary concept, to say the least.
If you’re pessimistic about what’s happening, then I think you already foresee an incoming disaster.
In any case, Clubhouse was a complete failure for many reasons, and influencers need to take a step back and re-evaluate their recommendations before they send them out to millions of people. Silicon Valley isn’t always right. Billion-dollar valuations can be wrong, and not everything is going to be “the next big thing”.
Originally posted on my blog a few days ago, but I figured I'd share this here.
What did you think of Clubhouse?
Did you use it? Do you think drop-in audio chat is something we'll see more of?
