The new hype app is probably based on Agora’s live audio platform
No time right now?
The Clubhouse live audio app is enjoying rapid popularity with almost one million users in Germany. There are now indications that it is based on the Chinese SaaS solution Agora.io.
Clubhouse keeps the startup world in suspense. The app, which is available exclusively for the iPhone and which you can only join at the invitation of an existing user, is spreading at breakneck speed. After joining, users open up a wide cosmos of different topics that can be discussed and discussed in the Clubhouse. Some people also use the app as a live podcast application, i.e. primarily in the direction of broadcast.
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Insider reports the connection between the clubhouse and the agora
After the initial excitement, more and more people wonder what the technology behind Clubhouse looks like. As always, Google helps and guides to a post by tech analyst Richard Chu from August 2020. In it, Chu describes his new job position at the American-Chinese live streaming company Agora.
Because he assumes that hardly anyone of his readers knows Agora, the “Twilio of China”, he describes in detail in his article how the service came about and what it does. He also introduces some of the existing customers of the backend solution.
Underneath is Clubhouse. According to Chu, the clubhouse app was created within just one week and is based on the live audio platform that is part of Agora. The many customers of Agora also included Xiaomi, Oppo, Lenovo and the Tiktok parent Bytedance, Chu continued.
More on the topic: Clubhouse hype: What is this social app and where is my invitation?
The app runs on an AWS structure and calls up Agora services from there
In Germany, the connection between Clubhouse and Agora was first the makers of the doppelganger podcast, Philipp Glöckler and Philipp Klöckner. They picked up the topic in their podcast # 27 on January 4, 2021.
We asked our community on Twitter and received an excerpt from the network protocol of our reader Andreas Lehr in response.
@AndyLenz So, as soon as I go to a room, I see a lot here 🙂
cc @pip_net @gloeckler pic.twitter.com/NcWoajxNDO
– Andreas Lehr 🚀 (@shakalandy) January 26, 2021
In it, he documents the DNS queries that the app starts as soon as a room in the clubhouse is entered. A conversation environment with its respective participants counts as a room.
As can be seen, Clubhouse contacts several URLs from Agora.io – in addition to the Pubnub service. According to Lehr’s findings, there is no contact with the Agora services before entering a room. Here, users only move around a conventional AWS instance with Cloudfront and the CDN Cloudflare. When the live audio function is requested, things get interesting.
Agora focuses on video and audio as the backend
Agora provides its customers with a backend that operates on a global level and offers audio, video and messaging services. Using various software development kits (SDK), Agora enables developers to easily integrate the company’s services into their own apps.
Technically, Agora’s services are based on the open standard Web-RTC, Web-Real-Time-Communication (real-time communication via the web). Not least for this reason, Agora relies on over 200 data centers worldwide, which are supposed to ensure tolerable latency through the customer-oriented execution of the services. This is a critical factor, especially with video and audio live streaming. Special algorithms should ensure that a latency of less than 300 milliseconds is always guaranteed.
Agora based in the USA and China
Agora.io is not a new player on the market, but was founded in 2013 by former WebEx developer Tony Zhao in Silicon Valley. Today Agora is active in over 100 countries around the world. The company’s most important sales driver is the Chinese market, which was responsible for almost 80 percent of total sales in 2019.
Agora has one headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and one in Shanghai, China. The share is listed under the ticker symbol $ API on the New York NASDAQ, where it is not subject to any clear trends, but rather fluctuates back and forth. That could change suddenly if the stock market realizes that Agora is the engine behind Clubhouse.
