Live audio: Spotify launches clubhouse competition Greenroom
Spotify has launched its clubhouse clone Greenroom on the iOS and Android operating systems. The app is based on Locker Room from Betty Labs.
Betty Labs’ Locker Room sports audio app users won’t see many differences when looking at the freshly launched Greenroom. With the exception of the Spotify branding and an expansion of the range of topics, the music streaming service has largely left all stones on top of each other.
Contents
Greenroom initially without Spotify integration, but with preparation for it
This was the only way to ensure that Greenroom was able to go onto the market just three months after Spotify took over Betty Labs. Greenroom has so far been a completely independent app. Long-term Spotify users also have to create a separate account. The link to a Spotify account should be possible in the future.
Unlike the idea generator and trend accelerator Clubhouse, Spotify’s live audio app Greenroom is available for both major smartphone operating systems right from the start. Even if sound and Spotify go well together at first glance, Greenroom is a risk for the service. After all, unlike Spotify, it is a real social network with its own rules and laws.
Topic focus has to develop
The objective of the social audio app is to enable users to have live conversations about sports, music and culture. What will actually be discussed then remains to be seen. In any case, in a first short test of the app, we could not discover any real restrictions on opening so-called rooms.
In the long term, Spotify wants to make content from Greenroom also accessible via Spotify. To this end, it should first be observed how people want and will use the new app.
Hardly any changes to Locker Room
In contrast to its technical basis, the Locker Room sports content app, Greenroom offers a much broader range of content. What the first users want to send is currently being sent. Anyone who valued Locker Room primarily because of its clear focus on sports will have to rethink or turn away from Greenroom.
Otherwise, the changes are more of a visual nature. So it comes in the green and black color scheme of Spotify and has a new logo and font. Functionally, there is now a native recording function that enables users to save their programs and distribute them as podcasts.
Social audio is still a hype – at least among developers. Until the start of Clubhouse in spring 2020, user interest in this form of group calls was limited. Discord has been an exception for gamers since 2015. Live audio has been popular there for a long time.
After Clubhouse, Twitter launched Spaces and Facebook hosted its first live rooms. A number of startups are developing live audio apps, some of which are niche-specific, and the major platforms such as Slack, Linkedin or Reddit are also working on live audio integration.
It is difficult to predict whether Spotify of all places will have an advantage because sound is the company’s core business anyway. It should be certain that Spotify can sound. It seems possible that Greenroom could develop into live podcasting with the possibility of listening.
