Is Clubhouse the next big social media platform?

If you’ve been spending much time on social media lately you’re probably seeing some of the online buzz about the emerging new social audio platform Clubhouse, and more recently, the Twitter backed competitor, Spaces, which has just launched in Beta.

Using the two audio-based social networking apps feels like a mix of listening to a live podcast and attending a Ted Talk where you can jump up on stage and ask questions—or host your own talk on any topic at any time.

Spaces is in very early Beta testing that’s only been made available to a few select Twitter users. Clubhouse is more widely accessible, but by invite only and, so far, only available on iOS as they continue to develop the app. Even with limited invites, Clubhouse has already quickly scaled to over six million users (most of those in the last 2 weeks) and just last week secured a $100 million investment led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz. Axios has reported that this latest $100 million round now values the company at $1 billion, showing Silicon Valley is very much sold on social voice being the next big thing.