CLUBHOUSE THE SOCIAL NETWORK THAT SPEAKS OF ART
by Andrea Concas
It is undoubtedly the place to be of the moment, the coolest social that is involving, overwhelming and above all making the art world talk.
If Instagram feared TikTok’s videos, it must now also look out – or rather open its ears – to the disruptive audio conversations of Clubhouse the brand new social network based entirely on users’ voices and voice messages.
For a long time, on messaging systems such as Whatsapp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger or in Instagram DMs, a voice message is preferred, whether short or long, to a text message, a choice related mainly to reasons of convenience, speed, laziness or context.
This phenomenon has certainly not escaped two visionary American entrepreneurs, obviously from Silicon Valley – Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, respectively former Pinterest and Google – who, after raising more than 100 million dollars from the venture capital firm Andressen Horowitz and already investors in Facebook, Twitter and Airbnb, have launched in April 2020 in full pandemic, the social network Clubhouse, where you can only send audio messages, and that today counts the first 2 million users with a valuation that exceeds 1 billion dollars!
Like an unusual walkie talkie for the most romantic or even a radio or an interactive podcast 4.0, where communication is bidirectional, Clubhouse is more similar to platforms for calls such as Zoom, Meet or similar for the most technological, where you can manage a “stage”, a stage with Moderator and Speaker along with an audience of listeners who gather in Rooms or Channels more and more thematic.
Exploded in the U.S. in recent months, in January 2021 arrived in Italy with great enthusiasm, but above all exclusivity.
To date, in fact, it is possible to access only by invitation, and this pleases the Community of Clubhouse that grows by a maximum of 4 people at a time, as many as the number of invitations available for each user.
A chain that creates dependence because, legend has it, that for each user who invites another, the first is responsible, a guarantor of the actions: the ban that could hit the invited then, would also hit the guarantor.
If on the one hand exclusivity has become a disruptive marketing lever, on the other hand it has guaranteed a great leveling of interests, status and peculiarities of users, who invite each other to create value and, above all, vertical communities.
The Rooms become thematic rooms, where to share more and more niche topics, where everyone can participate, albeit with the moderation of the organizers, but where the right to speak is for everyone and by a show of “hands”, with the aim of giving their contribution to the conversation.
One’s voice on Clubhouse becomes a very powerful weapon that leaves room for imagination: it can love, involve, bore or annoy, but it certainly allows everyone to go beyond their limits, without having to stop in front of technological barriers, such as those of Twitch for cameras or Instagram where being perfect in photos and live broadcasts is everything.
With Clubhouse all you need is an iPhone – for now the social network can only be downloaded on devices with iOS system, soon the Android version – and your voice: you can talk in any condition or moment of your day, in your pajamas, waiting for your turn at the post office or while cooking or doing sports, because you decide whether to listen or speak.
But beware: Clubhouse has a very high rate of “time consuming” and is as addictive as ever!
This is confirmed by the presence of big showbiz personalities such as Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Drake, journalists such as Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times, venture capitalists such as Ben Horowitz, influencers, entrepreneurs that you can find without too much effort between one room and another, where you can talk without filters, a unique opportunity to create a high-profile network.
There is no shortage of big names in the art world either, with protagonists such as contemporary art agent Johann Konig, artist Rashid Johnson, VOLTA art fair director Kamiar Maleki, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, or MTArt Agency founder Marine Tanguy.
Italy arrives too, happy to have kicked off with the first rooms dedicated to Art in Italian, but every day more and more gatekeepers arrive, such as the Taurisano Collection, the artist-illustrator and former start of TikTok Federico Cecchin and also the collector Umberta Gnutti Beretta and the Contemporary & Street Art Contributor of Forbes Marco Rubino.
Numerous thematic rooms dedicated to art, its promotion, innovation and Blockchain, the market where talks and interviews ignite comparisons and chats under the banner of art in an orderly and fruitful way.
For example, renowned collector Stefan Simchowitz’s Simco’s Art Club, which aims to create a dialogue between artists, collectors, curators, gallery owners and art philanthropists.
Although always by invitation, there is a large group of Italians that grows day by day welcomed by #ClubhouseItalia led by Marta Basso, multifaceted communicator and entrepreneur, and with whom every Tuesday at 9 am we lead together #LKDNFOCUS to take stock of the latest news, trends and current events, including innovation, culture and business and now also on Clubhouse.
I fell in love with it, I’m always present on social under the tag @ArteConcas and as usual, every day, I talk (this time in the true sense of the word) about Art and Innovation.
Fixed appointment from Monday to Friday at 2 pm you can find me with the Room “Art Lunch with ArteCONCAS”: 30 minutes to feed ourselves with Art talking about Innovation, great Artists, Museums, Professions, Market, System and answer to your questions!
