Clubhouse voice chat leads a wave of spontaneous social apps

All commutes have been reduced to how long it takes to generate an invite URL.

The jury is still out on whether Clubhouse is the next decacorn or the next Quibi, but one thing is certain: the app introduced millions of consumers to the world of social audio, which will surely drive greater innovation in the space.

That’s why there’s a social tech product I expect will emerge: the availability indicator — a way of knowing which friends and acquaintances are free to hang out synchronously. That could be for a quick phone or Zoom chat, a gaming or co-watching session, or an IRL rendezvous (in masks at distance for now). It’d be an evolution of the old green ‘on... See more

“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.” - Steve Jobs