Created by the community. For the community. About the community.
We are independent, and non-affiliated with official Clubhouse or Android.
Special Edition of Clubstack
What’s going on?
On Sunday, Clubhouse announced that Android BETA testing is beginning.
“Android is not yet live, but we started rolling a rough beta version out to a handful of friendly testers. If you hear someone saying they are using Clubhouse on the official Android app, please give them a warm welcome! We cannot wait to welcome more Android users to Clubhouse over the coming weeks. :) 🎉”
More official updates are expected in future townhalls & release notes.
More background
Here’s a quick timeline of this year:
January: Confirmed plans for Android, but work hadn’t started yet.
February: Some new hires are moving behind the scenes.
March: Update that Android app is 'a couple of months' from launch.
April: Actively working on Android, specifically on a Google Pixel.
May: Beta launch with a handful of testers & more in the coming weeks!
Faster rollout?
Quick reminder of what the iOS rollout.
Source: Data from technology and economics expert Vajresh Balaji.
With the initial iOS beta, there has been A LOT for Clubhouse to learn. And an entire community to establish. So, they went about it carefully and thoughtfully. And surely, there were some hiccups along the way.
With the initial Android beta, there is a sense of urgency for Clubhouse and eagerness for users. Competitive platforms are popping up left and right (including a new one that was shared directly this week). So, while we can imagine seeing a similarly “staged rollout” like iOS, this time will probably need to be much faster:
update only to a small subset of the user base,
monitor its stability or any other metric of interest, and
decide whether to roll out the update to more users, to wait for more data to come in, or to halt the rollout altogether.
PREDICTION: Instead of 6+ months, it would be great to see Android rolled out in the next 3 months (by August).
Millions of new users?
Here’s data from Statista.com:
99% = Global market share that Android and iOS jointly possess
129.1 million = Number of Android users in the United States
Well, there’s no lack of Android users in this world.
And, no lack of pressure for Clubhouse. Because this is one of the biggest moments / opportunities to attract millions of new users. (See below for ways that our club community can help.)
Expected challenges?
Lagging behind (source: 9to5Google)
“It’s not uncommon for social networks like Clubhouse to lag in their Android releases. In fact, there’s a long history of this, from Instagram to Snapchat to Path. Reasons vary. Seemingly, companies have decided iOS demographics make more sense for getting social media apps off the ground…
Audio quality (source: 9to5Google)
“…one of its bigger challenges — even being limited to iOS — is the wide disparity in microphone quality. It seems most people on Clubhouse, being the tech-savvy, early-adopter iOS demographic they are, use AirPods or similar. This creates a consistency in the audio quality of the conversations. This will likely be more challenging on Android.”
Fake websites (source: PCMag)
“Naturally, there are scumbags who will take advantage of this. A fake website at joinclubhouse[.]mobi has already circulated a Trojan program pretending to be Clubhouse for Android. It tries to steal your login credentials for almost 500 online services. Be very wary.”
Balancing priorities (source: Mobile Scout)
“Clubhouse isn’t sitting idle…while the team is building up Clubhouse’s Android app from scratch, it is also working in other areas so to maintain its graph and offer more flexibility and options to its users.”
Discovering interests (source: The Next Web)
“I’m willing to bet we’ll see the same initial rush to download the app on Android as we first saw with iOS. But those new users will also run into the same challenge of creating and discovering interesting sessions.”
Join the Android club!
It’s exciting to think of the new diversity of people, topics, ideas, and that will enter Clubhouse. And the current community of creators can actively participate to make this even better.
So, we’ve created a new club as a central resource to bring our communities together:
Hosting welcome rooms
Promoting new events
Sharing tools/insights
Making introductions
Inviting more friends
Be one of the first to join this club where millions can “be together. not the same.”