SLASH GEAR - Apr 14 - Clubhouse did confirm that an Android port would be coming and that it would be a major priority. That said, the company might have been busy trying to stabilize and secure the platform in light of the popularity it now enjoys. Unfortunately, there haven't been many words on that endeavor since then, at least until now.
20 posts categorized "Clubhouse"
Clubhouse for Android Possibly Coming Next Month
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Clubhouse Rolls Out Payments to ~60K Creators Following Initial Test
TECH CRUNCH - Apr 14 - At the beginning of April, Clubhouse said it would give a "small test group" of creators the ability to accept payments from their fans and supporters through the social audio app. These donations go 100% to the creators, Clubhouse noted at the time. Though tests began with just 1K users, Clubhouse this weekend rolled out payments to other 60K+ users in the US. And it expects to have payments roll out to everyone over the next few weeks. Co-founder Paul Davison noted that another 66K creators gained the ability to receive payments this weekend, following the launch of the original test.
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~1.3M Clubhouse Users' Personal Data Leaked Online
MASHABLE - Apr 13 - Cyber News reported that personal data for ~1.3M users was scraped from Clubhouse and posted on a hacker forum. The compromised data included names, handles for other linked social media accounts, and the username of whoever invited said user, as Clubhouse is still in an invite-only stage. That also doesn't the possibility of another, more disastrous leak later on down the line. Simply releasing a list of people's real names could, for example, lead to phishing schemes or other nefarious online deeds outside of Clubhouse itself.
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It's Never Been Easier to Start a Social Network. Succeeding Is Another Story
CNN BUSINESS - Apr 9 - Trump is reportedly planning to launch a social media platform. Last year TikTok hit the 100m user mark in the U.S. Clubhouse, Gab and Parler emerged. Early social networks like Facebook and Twitter enjoyed a distinct advantage: They were early movers. Today, advances in tech have made it trivial to establish a website and build social functionality: (Heroku on Amazon, or Microsoft Azure with code from Github). A barebones copycat of Facebook might cost $25k, but bandwidth and storage costs could quickly spiral out of control. If you ended up with tens of millions of engaged users, costs could be a $1m/mo. An even bigger challenge is figuring out what product to offer and USPs. A lot of the first invites to Clubhouse, similar to LinkedIn, went to VCs and founders. Everyone wants to join the network where the investors are. Then there's still the question of profitability.
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Twitter Have Held Acquisition Talks With Clubhouse on Potential $4B Deal
TECH CRUNCH - Apr 9 - Twitter held talks with Clubhouse around a potential acquisition of the live drop-in audio networking platform, with a deal value somewhere ~$4B. The timing of this revelation seems likely to prime the pump for Clubhouse's conversation with potential investors at its target valuation for the round it's looking to raise.
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Clubhouse Launches Payments So Creators Can Make Money
TECH CRUNCH - Apr 7 - Clubhouse, a one-year-old social audio app reportedly valued at $1B, will now allow users to send money to their favorite creators - or speakers - on the platform. Paul Davison, the co-founder of Clubhouse, mentioned in the company's latest town hall that the startup wants to focus on direct monetization on creators, instead of advertisements. "100% of the payment will go to the creator. The person sending the money will also be charged a small card processing fee, which will go directly to our payment processing partner, Stripe," Clubhouse says.
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Clubhouse Will Launch Its Android App in 'a Couple of Months'
TECH CRUNCH - Mar 23 - Social audio app Clubhouse has now promised a time frame of sorts for the launch of its anticipated Android version, following its recent hire of an Android software developer last month. Clubhouse co-founder Paul Davison remarked that the company was working "really hard" to come to Android, but said it's going to take a "couple of months" to make that happen. That seems to indicate a time frame that's closer to late spring or summer 2021.
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French Regulator Opens Privacy Investigation Into Clubhouse
PITCHBOOK - Mar 18 - Clubhouse has drawn the ire of Europe's data regulators over concerns that the app may be breaking privacy rules. France's independent data privacy authority, CNIL, opened an investigation Wednesday into Clubhouse's parent company, Alpha Exploration Co., to determine whether the app complies with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. CNIL said that it received a complaint about Clubhouse and a petition with ~10k signatures alerting it to possible privacy breaches. The regulator is working with its European counterparts to determine whether the company is in compliance.
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Clubhouse Promises Its Accelerator Participants Either Brand Deals or $5K Per Month During the Program
TECH CRUNCH - Mar 16 - Clubhouse is making a move aimed at seeding its network with more high-quality content by launching an accelerator program called "Clubhouse Creator First." It will initially help ~20 creators get their shows off the ground. Clubhouse said it will provide creators with anything they need to get started - whether that's equipment, promotional support, or help with booking guests, or even a babysitter. Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison explained that a core part of the accelerator experience will be to help creators get paid for their work. Clubhouse will match the creator with a brand sponsor. In the case that Clubhouse can't find a brand sponsor for a particular show, the company will just guarantee a basic income of $5k per month during the 3 months the creator is participating in the program. The company is allowing interested creators to apply for Clubhouse Creator First. The deadline to apply is Mar 31.
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Why Is Clubhouse Breaking the Internet?
ENTREPRENEUR - Mar 8 - Within a year of its launch, Clubhouse has risen to stardom with a valuation of $1B. Its popularity and user base are multiplying, but its biggest challenges are perhaps yet to be come. The platform is free and carries no ads, with new users invited by current members. With several celebrities including the world's richest man Elon Musk using it, the app is so much in demand that e-Bay is selling invitations for $89. Unexpected appearances on Clubhouse from Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg over the past week alone have further boosted awareness of the app, alongside its quick ban in China. The app is a hit despite some concerns about online harassment, misinformation, and privacy issues on the platform.
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Clubhouse Confirms Data Spillage of Its Audio Streams
BBC - Feb 25 - US cyber-security researchers said a Clubhouse user found a way to stream feeds from multiple chatrooms. Clubhouse confirmed the spill, which is when data is released to a place that is not authorized to have access to it. The firm said that it had banned the user and installed new "safeguards" to prevent conversations from being streamed again. "This individual's account has been permanently banned from the service and we have added additional safeguards to prevent people from doing this in the future." Program's chief technology officer of Stanford University's Internet Observatory, David Thiel, and Australian cyber-security researcher Robert Potter stressed that the data spill was not malicious or a "hack". By understanding how this worked, the user could connect a Clubhouse API to his website, and essentially "share" his login remotely with anyone on the internet who wanted to listen to the audio chats from the app.
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A Race to Reverse-Engineer Clubhouse Raises Security Concerns
TECH CRUNCH - Feb 23 - Live audio chat app Clubhouse ascends in popularity around the is currently only available on iOS, so some developers set out in a race to create Android, Windows and Mac versions of the service. While these endeavors may not be ill-intentioned, the fact that it takes programmers little effort to reverse-engineer and fork Clubhouse - that is, when developers create new software based on its original code - is sounding an alarm about the app's security. "[Clubhouse] asks a lot of information from users, analyzes those data and even abuses them. Meanwhile, it restricts how people use the app and fails to give them the rights they deserve. To me, this constitutes monopoly or exploitation," said Open Clubhouse's developer nicknamed AiX.
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Clubhouse Will Issue Security Update Over Chinese Data-Sharing Concerns
MASHABLE - Feb 15 - The developer of Clubhouse, Alpha Exploration Co. will make backend changes that will boost the service's encryption and prevent user ID pings from being routed through servers in China. The Clubhouse dev also pledged to have "an external data security firm...review and validate these changes." The move follows a detailed report from the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) revealing the audio chat app's previously unreported links to a tech interest in China. This is particularly worrisome, as the SIO notes, because "a user's unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plaintext, and Agora (a video, voice and live interactive streaming platform that provides backend services to Clubhouse) would likely have access to users' raw audio.
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Audio-Chat Social Networking App Clubhouse Has Been Blocked in China
DIGITAL INFORMATION WORK - Feb 11 - Audio-chat app Clubhouse has been blocked in many cities of China for a brief period as the country is ready to start the week-long Lunar New year holiday. This invite-only app remained uncensored in China until Monday, and people were gathered here to discuss some sensitive issues of politics, and the chat rooms were talking about Xinjiang's Uighur imprisonment and Taiwan independence. Some Chinese people were paying around 60 dollars for an invite for the chats. The website of the app is still working, but this app will have to comply with the Chinese internet rules and regulations in the future.
by Arooj Ahmed
See full article at Digital Information Work
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Facebook Is Reportedly Working on a Clubhouse Copy
THE VERGE - Feb 11 - Facebook has reportedly set its sights on social audio. The company is working on a copycat of Clubhouse, the buzzy invite-only social audio startup. The Times reports the product is in the "early stages of development," so it's unclear if and when it might launch. The news comes only five days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined Clubhouse and participated in a room to talk about the future of augmented and virtual reality.
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