I just wrapped my first live event on Clubhouse: a discussion around Using Content To Grow Our Businesses with Steve Portigal, Martina Hodges-Schell, Becky Buck, Thomas Richardson, and David Holl.
If you're not familiar with the Clubhouse app, it's like Snapchat for podcasts. People on the platform can spin up no-video, audio-only rooms and invite people in to chat. This allows for the real-time conversational intimacy of, say, a Zoom room, but it can have a much more broadcast-like effect because anyone on the platform can join a room (unless it's set to private). This means people can join an interesting room, drop their phone in a pockets, and go about their day. Anyone can join and listen, only people on stage can speak, and moderators can pull audience members up to stage so they can speak.
- Much like conference panels, Twitter is a great place for live show notes. For a good example, check out Steve Portigal's tweets from today's event.
- Pinging people to a live room is Clubhouse's version of "share this with your friends." Seems like a sensible way of making people aware there's a live event happening, just hoping these pings don't get too noisy as the platform scales.
- When pulling people from the audience to the stage, there's still a weird dance about when to move them back into the audience. Telling someone you're moving them back to audience before you do it feels right, gives them a chance to ask a follow up question first, etc.
- Inviting audience members to participate is m✨a✨g✨i✨c✨a✨l, but keep in mind many people are listening in situations where they can't contribute. We'll have to find ways of inviting them without the dead air of waiting for them **not** to respond.
- People come and go freely into rooms. That's the beauty of the platform. Unlike radio, though, people can see if you're listening. That's cool but weird. I can turn off the radio or podcast whenever I need to, but doing that on Clubhouse may have some social implications.
- Joining a room and leaving your phone just so people who expect you to be there will see you there even though you're not actually listening: will that become a thing? Related: Clubhouse needs an incognito mode.
There seems to be lots of promise on this platform. I'm looking forward to seeing how this helps facilitate conversations going forward.