Facebook Is Said to Be Building a Product to Compete With Clubhouse

A representative for Clubhouse declined to comment.

Facebook has a history of breaking into new technologies and chasing different mediums that have attracted users, especially if those audiences are young. Mr. Zuckerberg bought the photo-sharing site Instagram, the messaging app WhatsApp and the virtual reality company Oculus when all were small start-ups.

Facebook is also known in Silicon Valley for being willing to clone its competitors. Instagram in 2016 copied one of the marquee features of rival Snapchat, Stories,”which allow users to share ephemeral videos and photos. Last year, Instagram debuted Reels, a TikTok-like video product. When the teleconferencing service Zoom became popular last year, Facebook quickly created Rooms, a group video chat service. And this year, Facebook has been working on a competing product to Substack, the popular newsletter service.

Facebook has dabbled in experimental app development through its New Product Experimentation team. The team has worked on podcast apps, travel apps and music apps, among others.

Clubhouse, which was founded last year by the entrepreneurs Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, has gained traction among Silicon Valley’s elite as a private, invite-only iPhone app. The app is in “beta,” meaning it is still in a testing stage before a wide release.

After signing up for Clubhouse, users can create rooms dedicated to different topics. Instead of video or text, Clubhouse’s preferred medium is voice chat. Room sizes vary from the intimate to thousands of people listening or participating. At times, it works like a hybrid of a CB radio and 1980s-era party line.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/facebook-building-product-clubhouse.html