What Is Clubhouse? Here's Everything You Need to Know About the New, Invite-Only App

Tired of texting and suffering from Zoom fatigue? Enter Clubhouse.

If you scored an invite to Clubhouse, fantastic, you're probably listening in on a room now. IF not, here's the lowdown: They’re not all talk. Clubhouse—is an app that turns panel discussions and casual chats into a live podcast like panel. Think of it as part talkback radio, part conference call. If you're saying to yourself, great another app I need to be on, yes, this is the one and now you need to embrace audio as the next social media feature.

The conversation room is just like a conference call, but with some people on the call talking, and most listening in. And, just like a phone call, once the conversation is over, the room is closed.
Here are some things you should consider as to why it's beneficial:

1) You can show up as an authority and expert in your field
2) Use it as another platform to connect and grow your audience and exposure
3) You can learn from other experts
4) You can wear your pajamas and no one will know

I say, download the app, reserve your username, and wait for someone inside to invite you in.

Here's how it works:
Once you download the app after you get invited (through a link) you'll first create an account with a username, then you'll select topics you're interested in and people you'd like to connect with. Many topics are available, including tech, wellness, entertainment, sports, faith, and more. As far as following people, you can follow those you know from social media or your address book, as well as people who are interested in similar topics. If you'd like to receive a notification when someone's hosting a discussion on one of your topics, you can set that up in your phone's settings. All you need to do is go to the "Settings" app, click "Notifications," click "Clubhouse," and turn on "Allow Notifications." If you'd like to invite a friend as well, you can invite one person.

Users lead these topic discussions in "rooms," which are basically just separate spaces on the app. Several celebrities have joined or led them so far, including Elon Musk. Discussions currently being held are listed down the app's home page, underneath people you can follow and discussions scheduled for the future.

Once you join one of these "rooms," here's what to expect: you'll be muted and you can stay muted if you'd like. If you want to join the conversation, you can unmute yourself and click the hand emoticon at the bottom. You're also free to leave the "room" whenever you choose by clicking "Leave quietly." And, if you'd like to start a room, click the green "Start a Room" button at the bottom of the app's home screen.

I try different apps and tech all the time and haven't been this excited about a new platform in some time. Clubhouse is growing every day and it’s going to be such a great platform to be part of early, I don't think it's a social media fad.

Clubhouse just raised a new round of funding, and is rumored to be valued at over $1 billion. (Wait, really?) They’re also debuting new features like tipping and ticket sales for its more popular members—because rooms like “Are Sugar Daddies Morally Wrong” and “Influencers 101 !” sure do sound like they could cash in.
AND of course in true tech fashion, there are copycats. Facebook is reportedly working on a Clubhouse copy, (Who’s surprised?) which is especially LOL considering Mark Zuckerberg spoke on a tech panel on the voice-led startup less a few weeks ago. Twitter is also testing the concept and it’s called Twitter Spaces… but will either new apps be able to lure Lindsay Lohan to an impromptu Mean Girls reunion, like Clubhouse did last week? (If not, maybe the digital giants want to fetch another idea.) Oh and you might have heard, now Mark Cuban is working on a similar app called Fireside and he wants to destroy Clubhouse. The main difference between Fireside and Clubhouse is that Cuban's app will reportedly let you record the conversation and then post it or use it, something that is off limits on Clubhouse. You can actually get kicked off the app if you screen record the chats.

Anyone else obsessed with Clubhouse? Find me on there as @jessicanaziri