Malayalis find a new home in Clubhouse

Clubhouse icon seen on a smartphone screen (Image: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

When Clubhouse founders Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth launched Android on May 21, they would have hardly expected it to find a new home in Kerala. Since its launch over a week back, Malayalis are using it to discuss topics ranging from politics to feminism.

According to a Calicut-based media professional, Clubhouse has come to replace chayakkada (tea shop discussions) that were commonplace before the lockdown.

“Malayalis love discussions. With lockdown, people are moving online since the pandemic made physical discussions impossible. While Twitter Spaces offer similar options, Clubhouse is less distracting as a platform and they have embraced it,” he added.

Indeed. At the time of reporting this piece as of May 31 noon, there were at least 14 rooms where varying discussions like starting Youtube channel, photography, cricket, toxic feminism, and ‘Do you believe in God and Why?’ were happening with each room having anywhere between 200 to over 500 people.

In a room discussing ‘Why only half an egg is used in egg puff’ on the Clubhouse, there were close to 2,000 people.

According to a Hindu article, political parties like the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) are leveraging the platform to conduct discussions on the Lakshadweep issue that saw 3000 people joining.

This is a sharp contrast to what defined Clubhouse over the past year. Away from the tech and startup discussions that characterised the platform, music concerts on weekends and hot political debates have now come to define it in India, at least in recent times.

Clearly Indians are to a large extent defining their own usecases. According to app analytics platform Sensor Tower, as of May 25, Clubhouse in India had 1.03 lakh downloads on Google Playstore in India since its launch on May 21. Including iOS, the total downloads of Clubhouse are estimated to be over two lakh. Its global Android downloads stood at two million, and total downloads would be over 16 million.

Clubhouse's local peer FireSide, launched by Tiktok clone Chingari, said on May 14 that its beta has crossed 1 lakh downloads. Vikas Malpani, CEO, Leher, another drop-in audio social network, in March said the platform so far had 1.7 lakh downloads. According to Sensor Tower, downloads stood at 3,100 between April and May 12.

Clearly, Clubhouse is seeing much-needed traction amid stiff competition from Twitter Spaces, and other tech giants like LinkedIn, Facebook, Spotify, and Reddit who are also working on Clubhouse-like platforms.

Though the response on the potential success of the app in the coming month is mixed, While the app is witnessing new use cases, it is yet to be seen if it is sustainable as the novelty wears off.

Before the Android launch, downloads declined by 66 percent in India since February and 90 percent globally.

According to experts, While Android will give the company scale, building a creator community would be key, which is also what the company has been focused on in recent times.

Over the last few weeks, Clubhouse has launched initiatives to grow the creator community by helping them monetise and adding newer features to make content discovery easier for users.

"It is still early days for India. But as an audio social media network, I do see value in the coming months and quarters as more use cases develop," a digital marketing executive said.