Bitter Cookies & Facebook

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It was 8 pm on a Saturday. I just got home and wondered what to do. I had just noticed the little black and white face of the Clubhouse app logo that's been silently nesting on my phone's home page for months.

While it's invitation system was great to instil some kind of psychological scarcity in me to avoid deleting the app, it didn't really do a good job and keeping me logging back on. However, since Clubhouse recently expanded to Android, and the founders were hosted on my favorite podcast "How I Built This", I’d thought I'd give the app one more try. I notice a room, “Palestinians & Israelis Talk”. 950 people. Seems legit. 

Maj, the moderator, would ask the audience to ask a question and then would select an audience member to answer. The question began piling in. Word after word. Answer after answer. Everything... is a lie.

I raise my hand again. And again. A man asks: “Why does Israel prison Palestinians for filming dead people?”. I raised my hand, confident to speak. Maj then took the reins and said no one wanted to answer. He ignored me. He. completely. ignored. me.

Maj decides to answer himself. Maj speaks into the mic and says, the IDF rules Gaza and since they have no government they are oppressed and the IDF can do as they like. All questions were as insightful and rarely addressed without equally propaganda sounding responses. Not ones ever thinking to Google or reference a factual and relevant source. 

While the room was constructed under the notion that both sides get to speak about the situation as equals, for a room full of people less attune that can further educate themselves on the manner, no Israeli spoke while I was in the room. The only “Israeli” Maj kept asking to speak was a man named Guy who was conveniently always unavailable. Again, other people answered. I couldn’t.

UX plants ethics. It instills a foundation for the routes a user will inevitably face and the encounters he or she will be exposed to. It's a foundation which ultimately navigates the user through different features and puts them there for his or her benefit. By not adding a common social platform feature, like a public chatroom, misinformation can spread like wild fire. Just that one feature could have given this "I talk you listen" approach, a more holistic and democratic interaction.

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Clubhouse also doesn't allow recordings from in app conversations to be posted anywhere, and doesn't publicly log or share any snippets or mentions of former events that took place in app. This hurts accountability. This is because all references of in app events, like racist rooms who've gotten the app a lot of bad press, can't be examined. Therefor the app's reputation is dependant on "hear-say". Additionally, users who would like to be anonymous on the app can do so, which just increases the likelihood of false identity, racism and verbally oriented trolls.

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An opinion I'd like to mention here, that perhaps their mission isn't well constructed or executed for the users. When thinking of Ted, we think "ideas worth sharing". In Clubhouse, we're getting the less value oriented, just Ed, version. A platform with so much content, handed off by people with so few credentials, that keeps most conversation quite un-revolutionary and more tertiary. These speakers are often not even great conversationalists, but rather, just people who want to build an audience. Often making it very hard to stay engaged, especially when it takes several minutes to understand what topic a room is discussing upon entering, 
 

As conversations progress, there is no way to notify guests what the main topic that's being discussed at the moment is or offer Snapchat-like story features for audio giving sound bite highlights.

However these churn features (or lack there of) wouldn't be inexcusable if indeed the topics were filled with quality, enriching information or somehow providing another kind of value. This is how Clubhouse went on to grow in less than a year and a half to being downloaded by 10 million users (without being available for Androids). Clubhouse would host celebrities, talent and recognisable thought leaders to discuss buzzing new topics. But recently that has gone significantly down. No longer is Clubhouse using banners to inform about the hour Elon Musk is expected to come on. Now we just get Ted Musk, the guy from across the street who's always trying to teach you how to make some "swave" smoked meats.

Think the President of the United States talking to you while doing the dishes. Exciting, right? Now imagine the mayor of Manhattan Kansas talking to you while he's peeing. Kinda cringe? Okay. Now picture the awkward man from Friends who works at Perk Cafe and wears oddly coloured ties while he stares at Rachel. Him.... Yes him. Talking about Cryptokitties breaking the internet. Is that quality entertainment? 

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As of now, Clubhouse is still not making profit off the app despite being released in April 2020 and is being copied by all the big sharks in the tech ocean. They offer 100% of profits given in donations to creators to go in app smoothly, and yet, people just aren't coming back. Instead what I keep seeing, is more and more people wanting to speak about topics that may encourage people to help them profit (financially or by building a fanbase) and less about people that care to share knowledge, tips or hobbies. When I go on what I see are people who claim to know a lot about AI without ever diving deep, activists and ponzi scammers that can make a living out of their platform.

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On one hand the app promotes well known psychological feelings of good status in wanting to feel part of something exclusive, however it kind of beats this purpose when the app is desperately trying nudge people. Obviously an app isn't desperate, but for an app that uses an image of a human as its icon it certainly acts like it is. The notification after notification pop up of big stars coming on is a great way to remind people of the app, however their notification system is overbearing and will often recommend irrelevent topics. 

Funny enough my first experience on Clubhouse I once was in a room with Deadmouse the DJ, who seemed to hate of talking to his fans in cue. He sighed and complained that every person that came in the cue never asked him how he is doing and only asked him to follow them on Instagram or hear their new Spotify song. It seemed like his manager set out a mouse trap for him to fall into (mom joke) and it ultimately made his image and the app not look as good.

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What the app needs:

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- A chatbox

People feel like they need to be factual when they know someone has the power to publicly call them out if they are wrong or if tell them their behaviour isn't appropriate. 

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- Better user image placement
When you enter a room you have to scroll down and search for your own picture just to know you're muted and where you are in a cue. Having the image of the user that entered the app in the top of the list of attendees would prevent anxiety of the users mic possibly being on.

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-Notifying the users what is being discussed

Having the moderator fill in at the top of the page what the room is currently discussing would help attendees feel in the loop much sooner. While many wouldn't tend to changing it as conversations go on, this feature could be useful as an option for some.

 

-Better Speakers

Making it easy to find quality content by incentivising well spoken, fascinating people, to come on the app to help the signal vs noise ratio. This would make people have to sift through the sand of speakers and really find the gems. 

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-Limiting Notifications

Minding the amount of notifications, making sure they only sent very relevant ones (sometimes I would get notifications for rooms that I never set out the app to know I find interesting, or actually find interesting). This is done to make sure the user doesn't turn off the notifications they feel someone is taking away their choices in reactance.

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-24 Hour Recordings

The content is long and scarce which makes it hard to find time to tune into and just easier to watch a Youtube or hear a podcast. It may be worthwhile to select a tier of creators who could be able to record in app shows and encourage their fans to hear them exclusively on the app for the 24 hours when they're available.

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As the old saying goes, on the internet - anyone can be a dog. But in this case, the dog could be peeing on a fire hydrant and calling themselves the King Of Cryptocurrency to thousands of people. After spending a week interviewing active Clubhouse users for fun, I found that they mostly just used it as "backround sound" while doing other tasks and rarely remembered more than a sentence or two of novel content from the show. However most of them agreed they would assume that the new knowledge is truthful and valuable.

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It's already been proven that shock factor novel lies travel faster and farther than the truth. Clubhouse seems like a super-spreader for lies and a churning experience which tries to prioritize growing a creator base without chipping away and finding creators for their own (and the world's) greater good. What was once deemed to be a place to learn and talk with celebrities is now just a another podiums for Pinocchios. With adjustments they could find better ways of helping users want to come back and listen, and ultimately provide greater value and make the world a better place through good UX.