How Facebook, Mark Cuban Are Competing With The Clubhouse Craze

Social media platform Clubhouse has skyrocketed in popularity in recent weeks, and Facebook, Inc. FB is reportedly scrambling to launch its own audio chat product in response.

What Happened? Clubhouse is a popular app that provides voice chat in rooms that contain anywhere from a handful to thousands of people. The service is similar to the telephone party lines of the past. At this point, Clubhouse is available on iPhones by invitation only.

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The New York Times has reported Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing hard for Facebook to come up with an auto communication feature. Zuckerburg himself appeared on Clubhouse on Sunday to discuss augmented and virtual reality technology.

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Why It’s Important: Facebook has a long track record of mimicking competing companies’ services and making bank off of their own versions. Facebook famously launched Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels in response to the success of Snap Inc SNAP. More recently, Facebook launched its Rooms video group chat in response to the success of Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM.

Zuckerberg isn’t the only person looking to potentially compete with Clubhouse in the near future.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban and co-founder Falon Fatemi are planning the launch of next-generation podcasting platform Fireside, which will reportedly feature live conversation between the podcaster and listeners.

Twitter, Inc. TWTR is also reportedly testing Spaces, its own live broadcasted conversation feature.

Benzinga’s Take: Copycatting has been going on in the tech world for as long as the tech world has existed. Clubhouse has a limited window of opportunity to grow its user base and differentiate and build its brand before it goes head-to-head with the heavy hitters of the social media market.