Clubhouse may launch a creator marketplace
Clubhouse recently hinted a creator marketplace may soon be coming to connect its popular hosts with advertizers interested in reaching their fans.
What’s happening: Maya Watson, Clubhouse Head of Global Marketing, said in a Clubhouse room Wednesday that the company is exploring how to make it easier for creators to access advertising opportunities, The Information reports. While hosts have already been scoring advertising deals via traditional means — by reading an ad during a conversation — the creator marketplace would catch Clubhouse up with similar offerings from Facebook, Snap, and TikTok.
“We’ve been talking about how can we help introduce brands, agencies, and agents to our community, especially to the people in the creator-first program,” —Maya Watson, Clubhouse Head of Global Marketing
The background: Based in San Francisco, Clubhouse is an audio platform that offers forums for casual, live conversations. The platform, created by Alpha Exploration Co. and launched in March of 2020, allows users to join or listen to conversations ranging from branding strategy and space travel to philosophy and gaming. Clubhouse started as an invite and iOS-only app but as more companies have copied the platform, the company has been forced to adjust to compete with Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Discord, Telegram, and even LinkedIn.
Why it matters: Tips are currently the only way Clubhouse users can monetize their listeners directly through the app. With the addition of a creator marketplace, Clubhouse can offer creators more opportunities to earn cash while staying competitive with the ever-growing list of companies hoping to capitalize on the creator economy.
Continuing growth: While it’s facing competition in every direction, Clubhouse has still been able to grow at a remarkable clip. Since January, daily Clubhouse rooms have grown from 50,000 users to about 600,000. Clubhouse also added about 10 million users since it began offering an Android app in May, and now has about 30.2 million total installs, according to Sensor Tower. Facebook, by comparison, had 540 million downloads in 2020.
Unicorn status: Bloomberg reported that Clubhouse was courting investors at a valuation of about $4B — quadruple its value from its January's valuation of $1B. Not too shabby for a company that’s barely a year old. Clubhouse raised a $100 million Series B in January led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Creator First program: Clubhouse announced its “Creator First” accelerator program in March to support emerging creators with resources like equipment, creative development, promotion, and a monthly stipend. Clubhouse recently unveiled its first accelerator class of 40 hosts who will continue to tap the company’s financial, logistical, and promotional support. No word yet on when Clubhouse will open applications for its second cohort.
Attack of the Clones: Here’s a quick, non-comprehensive list of the Clubhouse clones now available or in development.
- Twitter began testing Spaces in December of 2020 and now anyone with more than 600 followers can host a room.
- LinkedIn hopes its clone with stand out as it taps users’ professional status rather than their personal identity.
- Spotify Greenroom has added 140,000 users on iOS, 100,000 on Android and is offering a creator fund.
- Facebook’s Clubhouse copy is so important to the company it plans to feature audio conversations at the top of its News Feed and above users’ Stories.
- Discord launched some Clubhouse features in March
- Telegram began working on some Clubhouse-like features in the first quarter of 2021.
