Business | Hype club

Clubhouse may fade. Group voice chat is here to stay

What Silicon Valley’s latest hype cycle says about the future of social media

|SAN FRANCISCO

ONE OF SILICON VALLEY’S most successful inventions is hype. It usually disappoints. In 2015 live-streaming from smartphones became all the rage. But Meerkat, an app which pioneered it, shut down the following year. On April 1st Periscope, its more successful rival, did too (no joke). Will Clubhouse, a buzzy app that hosts live audio gabfests, suffer the same fate?

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Hype club”

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