Is Clubhouse The Future Of Podcasting?

Social audio—Clubhouse—is rippling waves of disruption throughout podcasting, polarizing us into camps of lovers, haters, and those who can’t get in. Nervously, we’re starting to ask some questions.

January 14, 2021

Article

Not all of 2020’s gifts that keep on giving into ‘21 are bad. Take Clubhouse, a social audio platform that has reached a fever pitch within my podcasting circles.

I've been on the platform for almost two weeks now, and I don't hate it. No, I don’t love it, but I am intrigued by the possibilities of social audio. And since the future and present of podcasting is the raison d’etre of Podcast Pontifications—and also because many have been asking for my hot take—I'm going to dive in and answer the five the most-pressing (or at least most-asked) questions I have encountered from other podcasters who are curious how Clubhouse will disrupt podcasting.

Clubhouse For Podcasting Dummies

To me, Clubhouse is the ‘21 version of the party line. Only we're not holding a phone to our ears, and the phone isn’t attached to the wall by a twisty 3.5’ cord. Instead of calling a number, the iOS-only app allows us to see several real-time conversations—rooms—happening right now. If one looks interesting, we click to join and are immediately dropped into the conversation.

It could be one person talking to an audience, but most often there are several people “on stage” offering opinions, answering questions, or just conversing with one another. If you wish to join in, there’s a hand-raising mechanism. If the moderators allow it, you’re brought on stage and your voice is heard by everyone in the room.

Oddly enough, it’s not as chaotic and cacophonous as you might think. Exceptions aside, there’s very little talking over one another. It just… works.

Clubhouse is a social audio experience and has many of the features you’ve come to expect from social platforms. You have a profile. People can follow you and you can follow others. You can create your own room and invite friends to join. So it’s sorta social.

Most striking is the audio-only nature of this platform. Not audio-first. But audio-only. No scrolling chat room with snarky texts overlaid onto the conversation. No private back-channels between moderators or attendees. Heck, you can’t even send emojis while someone is talking to demonstrate your love or ire. All communications with other people on Clubhouse are 100% audio. That’s a little weird. But it’s also something that podcasters should be super intrigued by. I know I am.

Podcasters Ask The Darndest Things About Clubhouse

Before I get to the questions, I need to thank my friend and fellow podcasting consultant Jonathan Baillie Strong for inviting me to the platform. He’s so enamored with the idea of social audio that he’s starting a newsletter to cover the space. The first episode hasn’t yet gone live as of this recording, so sign up at SocialAudioInsider.com to stay current on this fast-moving space. Because it’s much, much bigger than just Clubhouse.

1. Is Clubhouse the future of podcasting?

In a word, no. In nine words, Clubhouse—or something like it—is in podcasting's future. But so are many other things. It’s tempting and likely comforting to think of podcasting as a static thing that was made perfect in 2006. But you already know what I think of that short-sighted view of podcasting. So while I don’t think social audio is podcasting’s eventual, pre-determined evolutionary form (and that’s not how evolution works anyhow), I do think that social audio is going to exist along with podcasting, and both will evolve over time.

2. Is Clubhouse a distribution channel for my podcast?

A smart play in podcasting is to distribute your podcast on every channel. And the natural inclination of podcasters—one I’m guilty of myself—is to find ways to distribute our podcast’s episodes on platforms where they don’t quite fit. YouTube, for example. Or audiograms. So while it’s technically possible to push your episodes out on Clubhouse, it’s a bad fit. There’s nothing inherently social about publishing the audio file of a podcast. And brute-forcing your latest episode into a room on Clubhouse isn’t going to make it so.

3. Will Clubhouse kill podcasting?

Buggles aside, did video actually kill the radio star? Last time I checked, in-ear-only music remains the way most people listen to music, either from a music app or via their stereo. Did podcasting kill radio? I may have contributed to the hyperbole of the early aughts, but no podcaster from back then is all that surprised that radio is still with us today. And Twitter didn’t kill long-form journalism, as was also predicted.

So, no. Clubhouse or the next social audio platform is not going to kill podcasting. Podcasting still lets you listen to what you want when you want. Listening to or participating in a conversation in Clubhouse happens in real-time, to the exclusion of every other conversation happening at that particular time. Even if (when) replays are enabled, I predict they will be infrequently used, if past evidence of similar attempts holds true. “I guess you had to be there” is brought to life on Clubhouse.

4. As a podcaster, should I invest my valuable time building my brand on Clubhouse?

I know you’re busy. You already spend dozens of hours a week on your podcast, your job, your family, and other things important to you as a person. And yes, like any social platform, Clubhouse can be a huge time-suck if you want to get anything substantial from the platform. Worse, you’re building a brand on someone else platform, and that platform could either fold or be displaced by someone bigger. Hi, Twitter Spaces!

Remember Plurk? How about Meerkat? Or Quibi? Each of those good ideas was displaced by something else, namely Twitter, Snapchat, and… well, maybe Quibi wasn’t such a good idea. But I remain confident that social audio is going to be with us for a while, and the current dominant player is Clubhouse. So you might as well get your feet wet. But you should also stay very adept and be able to shift quickly if (when?) the tide changes.

5. How can podcasters use Clubhouse?

Well, that's what many podcasters are actively experimenting with right now. They're inventing this space as they go along. And starting tomorrow, Friday, January 15, 2021 at 10:00a MT, I’m going to join them. Tomorrow, I’m extending the Podcast Pontifications brand to Clubhouse. No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to record an episode of Podcast Pontifications on Clubhouse. See “bad idea” from earlier in this piece.

Instead, I’m going to embrace the social nature of the platform, inviting others to offer their insights on the future of podcasting and answering questions about concepts brought up on Podcast Pontifications in real-time. Current platforms don’t make it easy to do that. But I have high-hopes that Clubhouse or another social audio platform just might.

Or it might be an exercise in futility. Who knows? But I’m trying it tomorrow. January 15th, at 11:00a Arizona time. That's 1:00p in New York and 10:00a in Los Angeles. If you’re on Clubhouse, I invite you to join me for the first Podcast Pontifications on Clubhouse. Follow me—evoterra—and you'll get a notification when the room goes live.

And if you’ve signed up for a membership on BuyMeACoffe.com/evoterra, you get special treatment in that Clubhouse room! Shoot me a note if you want more info about that. And if you’re not already a member, sign up!

Spread the word about Podcast Pontifications and the event on Clubhouse tomorrow among your podcasting friends.

And if you can’t join me then, I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Transcript

[Download & share this transcript]

Social audio, Clubhouse, is sending waves of disruption throughout podcasting, polarizing us into camps of lovers, haters, and those who can't get in. Nervously, we're starting to ask some questions.
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Not all of the gifts 2020 has spilled over into '21 are bad. Like take Clubhouse, a social audio platform that has reached, at least in my podcasting circles, a fever pitch. Now I've been on this platform for almost two weeks now to the day and I don't hate it.
‍

I also don't love it, but I am rather intrigued by things. And since this show is ostensibly about the future and present of podcasting, it makes a lot of sense, and also because many of you have been asking for my opinion, for me to chime in. So I'm going to dive in and answer five of the most pressing, and most oft repeated questions I have encountered in my whopping two-week tenure of Clubhouse.
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So an expert I am not in the Clubhouse, but I'm relatively good at sussing out things that might make sense for podcasting. So, first off, let me just quickly tell you what Clubhouse is if you've not been in. This is my take on it, right? So Clubhouse is the 2021 version of the party line.
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Except we're not holding the phone to our ears any longer. We now have phones we keep in our hands with earbuds in. And we're not calling a phone number to join, but we are joining a room, if you will, to listen in to a conversation that multiple people, one talking to themselves, sure, to the audience or 15 - people are having back and forth and as confusing as you think that might be it's not, oddly enough. It kind of works because there's a moderator who can have some semblance of control.
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So you join a room, you hear this conversation happening, you can raise your hand, and if the people who run the room allow you on stage, you can ask your question in your own voice. It's social audio in that you can follow other people. You have every bit of the power as anybody else in your own room, you can start your own room.
You can then invite your friends to join you in that room and have a conversation. All the things you would expect social audio to do. But here's the real key thing about Clubhouse. Clubhouse is audio only. Audio only. No snarky back channel, which I would love to see. No chats going back and forth.
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You don't get to heart, or clap, or those sorts of things. At least not in the emoji style that you see on most of the live video platforms that are out there. All communication you have with another person on Clubhouse is 100% audio. Weird, I know, but audio only.
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So yeah, we should really love it. So I joined back on January 1st, 2021, thanks to Jonathan Bailey Strong, a friend of mine. Jonathan, by the way, has a newsletter he's starting called socialaudioinsider.com. The first episode is not yet released, but he's going to be covering the social audio thing, which is a real thing. Social audio is here. That's what we're going to talk about.
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So with all of that out of the way, quickly, here are the five questions I hear over and over again when I'm in podcast-specific rooms on Clubhouse.
Number one - is the future of podcasting Clubhouse? Well, in a word, no. But at nine words, or I think it's nine words, Clubhouse, or something like it, is in podcasting's future. But then again so are a lot of other things, right?
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So it's not the future of podcasting, but it certainly is part of podcasting's future. As we continue to evolve the medium that we have, and as the world around us continues to evolve, that audio only aspect clearly makes it a part of our future. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense.
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Second question I get a lot - is Clubhouse a distribution channel for my podcast? Much like we distribute our show over on YouTube, for example, or we're doing other sorts of soundbites and repurposing and repackaging our content, distributing it as far and wide as we possibly can. Should you try to distribute your show, record your show, if you will, on Clubhouse?
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Well, you can try? But just like anything you're trying to force a round peg into a square hole. It's not designed for that. So I am certainly not looking at using Clubhouse as a distribution platform, because again, there's nothing inherently social about listening to a podcast.
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And Clubhouse and all forms of social audio are going to be social in nature. Very much real time things. So there's probably a play for podcasting? There's certainly a play for podcasting, but it's not as a distribution channel for your podcast.
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Will podcasting - excuse me let me change that.
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Will Clubhouse kill podcasting? Well, my answer that I've given several times on this is as follows. Remember when video killed the radio star? Not the song by the Buggles, but nonetheless, that was the assumption that was going to happen that video will now kill radio stars and bands will stop touring and stop making music and just make music videos.
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Yeah, that didn't happen. Podcasting was going to kill radio back in 2004 when I started. That didn't happen. Twitter was going to kill long form writing. That didn't happen. So no. Clubhouse or social audio in general is not going to kill podcasting.
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We're not transferring all of our efforts over there. And there are a lot of reasons why, but most of it has to do with on demand. That killer app of podcasting, which lets people listen to whatever they want whenever we want does not exist in Clubhouse. It is a real time, listen to this conversation to the exclusion of every other conversation happening at that particular time.
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So no Clubhouse is not going to kill podcasting. If anything, it inspires podcasting, as some people have said. How inspired you get is up to you.
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Next question, should I, a podcaster, invest time in Clubhouse and social audio? Because I'm already busy, I already spend X hours a day on my podcast. I spend X hours a day in my business. Do I really want to invest time in something else? Maybe. I mean, there's no guarantee that Clubhouse is going to be the thing that propels social audio forward. There's no guarantee this particular platform is going to win.
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Remember Plurk? Probably not. Remember Meerkat? Maybe vaguely. What about Quibi? Yeah. None of those worked. They're all good ideas. Like Plurk became Twitter. Meerkat became whatever the stories of Snapchat and Instagram are. And Quibi, short form video, well, jury's still out on that.
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But something in social audio is going to continue. I don't think this genie goes back in the bottle. Here we are. So you might as well play around in Clubhouse? That's my approach, but also be very adept and be able to switch pretty quickly.
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Last question. How can podcasters use Clubhouse? Well, that's what we're finding out right now. We're inventing this space as we go along.
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To help answer that question, tomorrow, Friday, January 15, 2021, I will be going on Clubhouse for the first time with Podcast Pontifications on Clubhouse. No, it's not going to be me just speaking out to you, but you know how sometimes as you're, if you're watching this live, I do this live as a video, a lot of people are in the chat room with ideas?
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So we're bringing that live. We're going to do it on Clubhouse tomorrow, January 15th, 11:00 AM Arizona time. That's 1:00 PM New York City. That's 10:00 AM Los Angeles. Join me for a Podcast Pontifications on Clubhouse. Just follow me, I'm @EvoTerra, or just Evo Terra, I guess, on the Clubhouse. And you'll get notifications of that.
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Also, along with that, buymeacoffee.com is where people go to show their love. Well, Subscribers to that, people who've got a membership of it, so I get a virtual coffee from them on a regular basis, will have some extra perks that will roll into this new social audio thing that I'm doing. So that's good.
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Got it? That's it. So tell a friend about Podcast Pontifications, but more importantly for now, see you tomorrow, Friday, on Clubhouse.
And if you can't do that, cause you're on an Android, sorry, but I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
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Cheers!

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