Mark Zuckerberg Announces Facebook is Working on a Knockoff of Clubhouse Called ‘Live Audio Rooms’

Mark Zuckerberg Saul Loeb/Getty Images

On Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media company was investing in several new audio features, including one called “Live Audio Rooms” that will allow users to engage in real-time audio-only conversations with each other, similar to Clubhouse.

The invite-only Clubhouse app launched in early 2020 and quickly gained popularity among people seeking to connect during the coronavirus pandemic. Clubhouse benefitted from the media buzz and attracted funding from major venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, whose founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz make frequent appearances on the app to host a variety of room topics that appeal to the user base’s younger and tech-friendly demographic. So far, the app is only on iPhone but an Android version is expected later this year.

According to CNBC, Zuckerberg was being interviewed on Monday by Casey Newton on the Sidechannel Discord server — another app that facilitates audio conversations — and said that Facebook viewed audio as “a first-class medium,” and they were working on developing multiple different products “across this whole spectrum.”

The Live Audio Rooms feature will be tested first within Facebook groups. “You already have these communities that are organized around interests, and allowing people to come together and have rooms where they can talk, I think it’ll be a very useful thing,” said Zuckerberg.

The plan, according to Facebook’s blog post announcing the new features, is to allow creators to monetize the Live Audio Rooms by charging users for access, either as a single purchase or an ongoing subscription.