Facebook announces plans for its Clubhouse chatroom copycat, along with new ‘soundbites’

Facebook announced Monday it is developing a series of ‘social audio’ products to compete against rivals such as Twitter and the newly-popular Clubhouse.  

The new features include ‘soundbites’ that lets users share voice recordings to newsfeed that others can ‘flip through in an infinite scroll’ like videos in Instagram Reels. 

Along with going after Twitter and Clubhouse, Facebook has Apple in its sight by offering podcasts that can be downloaded and listened to directly in the main app.

However, it may be the confirmation of a Clubhouse copycat that users have been waiting for, which is set to roll out as an audio-only version of Rooms this summer.  

Clubhouse is an audio-chat social media platform available by invite-only and Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance during a segment that many said was his way of infiltrating the app –and it seems the speculations may have been right.

News of Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor surfaced in February from the New York Times, which shared information from people familiar with the matter.

These sources said Zuckerberg has long been interested in audio communication forms, but Fireside is still in ‘its earliest stages of development.’

Emilie Haskell, a Facebook spokeswoman, told the new source: ‘We’ve been connecting people through audio and video technologies for many years and are always exploring new ways to improve that experience for people.’

Along with a potential audio-only feature, Vox also shared that Facebook could let users record short voice messages that can be posted to their newsfeeds.

It would also be a feature that could be valuable to those with vision issues, allowing them a new way of experiencing the social media site.

The podcast discovery product is said to connect with Spotify, which is also said to be working on a Clubhouse copycat.

Clubhouse has made waves in the social media world and in just a matter of months.

It has hosted a number of big names such as Drake, Kevin Hart and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Zuckerberg appeared in ‘The Good Time Show’ in February to discuss the future of virtually and augmented reality, but listeners of the discussion speculated that it was a reconnaissance mission for his own company.

Moments after news spread the Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance on Clubhouse, Twitter was filled with conversations about the CEO’s motives.

Sal Rodriguez shared a tweet that reads: ‘Listening to Mark Zuckerberg chat on Clubhouse, it’s impossible not to wonder how long before Facebook releases its own version of this product.’

One user called ‘Amy’ thinks the CEO could make his own spin off of ‘audio rooms’ that would be available on Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Facebook has been branded the king of copycats among the social media world.

The reputation stems from its first attack on Snapchat in 2017 when it added Stories to Instagram.

However, the move seems to have paid off as the feature has more than 500 million daily active users while Snap says it has about 238 million, as reported on by the Washington Post in August 2020.

Its latest offence, also a feature in Instagram, pulls from TikTok.

Facebook launched Reels last year that offers short-form video editing tools that lets users be creative with 30-second video clips with captions and music.

While TikTok’s entire model makes the same features available, but extends the clip time to 60 seconds.