san francisco clubhouse the invitationonly audio chat app exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic when people could not get together in person but now the once niche platform has far higher goalslaunched less than a year ago clubhouse which recently encountered a censorship hiccup in china is looking to establish itself as the standardbearer for digital audiothe concept is simple once youre invited to join you can start or listen to conversations in digital rooms ranging from a major talk by someone famous to a chat within a small groupno posts no photos no videos just audiofacebook founder mark zuckerberg cropped up on the platform last week talking about the technology of the future spacex and tesla ceo elon musk showed up late last month to talk about the gamestop trading frenzybut the app was quickly blocked in china where unfiltered conversations about normally taboo topics such as democracy protests in hong kong and the mass detention of muslim uighurs in xinjiang ran afoul of government censorsthe app available only on apple thrives on the concept of fomo fear of missing out if youre not online when a conversation happens you miss iti was very active in april and may says sheel mohnot a california investor with more than a million clubhouse followers and then you know you get busy and other stuff was going on and its just hard to make it a prioritybut once again now i would say im back on pretty regularly added mohnot who even had a second date on the platform with two dozenodd people listening and a psychologist in the background to comment on how it wentbeyond fomo clubhouse launched in march 2020 in silicon valley for the chosen few but now used by about two million people every week thrives on its portabilityusers can walk their dog or cook dinner while listening to talks on financing a startup or the current state of american education or even tune in while playing trivia gamesunlike podcasts everything is live and users can participate as long as they are invited to do so by chat moderatorsa clubhouse chat can be mundane but it can also be transformed into a musthear event if someone famous shows up in addition to zuckerbergs and musks recent appearances comedian kevin hart popped up in a chat last springfor musks appearance with the boss of trading app robinhood the maximum capacity of 5000 people was quickly reached so secondary overflow rooms were openedi didnt get in the room but someone that had gotten into the room was livestreaming on youtube said bobby thakkar a managing partner at ampersand ventures and an early clubhouse adopterin the early days thakkar would spend 25 hours a week on clubhouse given how little he could get out because of pandemic lockdown measureseveryone knew each other when clubhouse first launched thakkar told afp now he prefers chat rooms where hes just talking with