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Mobile Syrup

Social audio app Clubhouse layoffs more than 50 percent of its staff

Clubhouse has made some major changes to staff, with over 50 percent of employees having been laid off. The decision was announced by Clubhouse founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth in an email to employees.

The note to staff read, “We’re scaling back our org by over 50% and saying goodbye to many talented, dedicated teammates in the process.” It’s been reported that impacted members of Clubhouse were sent invitations to a one-on-one meeting with managers from their respective departments.

The company’s decision stems from problems as a result of the pandemic, with the company admitting that it became harder for people to find friends on the app and to fit those conversations into their daily lives.

Founders Davidson and Seth would go on to state that in order for Clubhouse to find its role in the world, the product needs to evolve. Evolution requires what they describe as a “period of change.”

Despite the bad news, the company did provide some resources to those impacted. Firstly, salaries will be paid for the rest of April, plus four months of additional severance for all departing employees. Employees will also continue to receive full healthcare coverage for themselves and their families until the end of August.

The remaining workers who were unaffected by the changes were sent an invite for a brief team meeting, most likely to be debriefed on the company’s new directions.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Clubhouse

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Mobile Syrup

Spotify to integrate Greenroom’s live social audio into its main app

Spotify’s Clubhouse rival, Greenroom, could feature one significant upgrade over its competitors. According to Bloomberg, Spotify will integrate Greenroom into its base app and rename the service to be more accessible for users.

The live social audio app will be renamed Spotify Live and will be available on the main Spotify app. Content creators can still organize conversations, which subscribers will be able to listen in on.

While Bloomberg’s source is unnamed, evidence of the change was spotted in the code for the beta version of Spotify’s iPhone app.

Spotify’s Greenroom integration will reportedly take place in the second quarter of the year.

The Swedish audio and media company isn’t the only one to copy Clubhouse’s social audio functionality. Twitter launched Twitter Spaces, Meta has Live Audio Rooms via Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Discord also have a similar feature. Clubhouse reached more than 10 million users within a year of its launch.

However, the social audio buzz has seemed to die down and has caused platforms like Spotify’s Greenroom to struggle, according to Bloomberg.

Source: Bloomberg

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Mobile Syrup

You can (finally) listen to Clubhouse conversations without an account

Conversations on audio platform Clubhouse can now be enjoyed through the use of a browser — and keen listeners don’t need to make an account to access conversations.

The company announced on Twitter (rather sarcastically) that it has introduced the new sharing feature. This allows users to share a live room with other Clubhouse members and on social networks, allowing anyone to listen in using a shared link.

Prior to this, conversations could only be joined through the Clubhouse app, severely limiting who could listen to conversations.

Clubhouse seems to acknowledge this when they tweeted “we invented [sharing] and nobody has thought of it before.”

Engadget reports the feature is “experimental” and only available in the U.S. for the time being. It could expand to other countries if the new feature receives enough support.

Questions remain if the company worked fast enough to debut the change, given the competing options that have launched since Clubhouse was created, such as Twitter Spaces.

9to5Mac reports such competition contributed to a dramatic decline in Clubhouse’s monthly download numbers, which reached its peak with 8 million downloads in February 2021. That number dropped below 1 million two months later.

Image credit: ShutterStock

Source: Clubhouse via: 9to5Mac