Just when everyone thought the concept was dead and buried, it turns out that Clubhouse has yet another major competitor on its hands... The audio format has been on a roll for several months now. For many years now, we've been hearing about podcasts that are making more and more noise, but this format has remained confidential. With most listeners on the Apple Podcasts platform for years, this medium even seemed reserved for iPhone users...
From the democratization of podcasts to audio events...
It's now a fact: more and more Internet users are turning to audio platforms. Whether it's Google's smart speakers, streaming music with platforms like Spotify, audiobooks with Audible, or podcasts, everything seems to be converging towards increasingly important audio formats. In fact, even the video platform YouTube now offers a service that enables Internet users to be content with the audio of videos posted online, without even seeing an image.
But if the audio format has been able to take on such a considerable role in recent years, it's undoubtedly thanks to the podcast format. Democratized by Apple in recent years, audio streaming platforms (such as Spotify and Deezer) have even decided to offer podcasts too! With some brand-new programs, this format is attracting more and more interest, and we've come a long way from the audio formats that were once only intended for the iPhone...
The arrival of Clubhouse is changing the face of live events...
So when Clubhouse opened its doors recently, everyone was amazed at the boldness of the project. Indeed, while the audio format is taking on considerable importance with podcasts, the video format was previously reserved for live events. A few months after its arrival, Twitter was able to launch its competitor with Spaces: a real blow for Clubhouse!
Indeed, with a community that has struggled to build up, we can imagine that the news was not well received by the company. But that was without taking into account a newcomer who could make a lot more noise: LinkedIn!
LinkedIn finally offers live audio: what's the difference?
With an ever-growing community of professionals around the world, LinkedIn has carved out a prime position for itself on the social networking scene... Indeed, with the Viadeo social network no longer widely used these days, LinkedIn has every interest in developing new features to maintain its leadership position. Nevertheless, social networks for professionals are not always popular, especially in certain fields where LinkedIn is still little used.
However, by choosing to develop a feature such as audio lives, LinkedIn intends to attract new users, while retaining existing ones. So, in the first demonstrations we've seen, LinkedIn seems to have taken its inspiration directly from Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse... Promising a new, interactive experience, we should be able to see discussions with major entrepreneurs emerge in January, or professionals wishing to exchange views on niche subjects... To top it all off, LinkedIn is also promising a video version of these events for the coming months: enough to give the competition a run for their money... In the meantime, if you want to discuss the production of your podcast, we're not far away!
