Why Airchat will change social media forever
I’ve been using the early version of Naval's new app Airchat for a year.
Last week it went viral. And with it the haters came out in full force.
Here’s why I’m still bullish on Airchat and believe it will change social media forever:
💬 Talk with real people: Twitter is the closest app to Airchat right now. But it’s completely impersonal.
I’ve already built stronger connections with people on Airchat than I have from years of using Twitter.
🎤 Transcription is awesome. Voice notes are long. You don’t know if they're relevant. Having a text version of the voice note to scan makes it easier to find relevant content.
🗣️ Transcription supports multiple languages. I can record in Hebrew, and you’ll read it in English. It works great! Try it!
👥 Groups: launched this week. This focuses discussions around specific topics. Can’t wait to see more of this in the weeks ahead.
🏆 Talk to people you couldn't in other settings. Part of this is because it's so early. But you can speak to people like Naval that you wouldn't have been able to speak to otherwise.
And a response to the haters:
“It’s just Clubhouse”
It’s not. Saying it’s Clubhouse is like saying Zoom is Clubhouse. Or a Podcast is Clubhouse.
Clubhouse is sync. Airchat is async. Clubhouse is 1:many. Airchat is 1:1.
“It’ll die down. Every new social app dies”
Maybe. Creating a new social app is hard. It might die. But what’s that matter to you. The relationships you build last whether or not the app becomes a unicorn.
“Twitter will just copy it like they copied Clubhouse”
They might eventually. But what’s that matter unless you’re an investor in Airchat? I predict apps will copy it. Discord channels will offer this feature, and it will be awesome. Turning text chats into real conversations.
WhatsApp is long overdue transcription for voice notes. Ideas from Airchat will get added to many apps.
“I can’t use Airchat in places I can’t talk”
The intimacy of Airchat is a feature, not a bug.
Certain settings are meant for talking, others aren’t. Airchat is about conversations with people. You can’t do Zoom meetings everywhere either.
“Twitter conversations are also conversations”
Yes, but they’re far less intimate. You’re talking to a wall of text, not a person. You don’t date over text, you date over voice. It’s more intimate. You’re talking to a real person.
“The content is boring”
It will improve over time. There will be more content. The algorithm will improve to show you the best content. Groups will allow you to find specific content you're interested in.
“I prefer Twitter”
Good. Use Twitter. I use it too.
“The hype will die down”
Probably. But what’s that matter to you? You’ll only use apps that have 100m DAU? Successful social apps have early hype that dies down, and then grow steadily after that.
🪭 As you can tell, I’m a fan 🪭
If you’re on the app feel free to say hi. My username is eliezer. And feel free to DM if you need an invite.
I’m not so sure, although social media has made us more disconnected than ever, mental health issues are on the rise and as a result I think less and less people are communicating by phone call, I know many people who jump out of their skin when the phone rings and are too anxious to talk over the phone
Great points, totally agree. It may be difficult to pull people off the highly addictive doom scroll apps or the engagement farming platforms.
But the warmth and familiarity of interacting with real people over audio is immediately clear as a better way to have these interactions.
Over a long enough time horizon, I do believe that many people who feel the negative consequences of the popular apps, whether its loneliness or anxiety, will find AirChat to be what they needed all along.
And they'll develop meaningful connections and real world skills like becoming a better speaker in the process.
I do think it’ll have more staying power than clubhouse because of the async dynamic, but still am skeptical of mainstream traction.
Naval is on there trying to get people to follow fewer people and other things to improve their experience. If you have to micromanage people’s interaction with the app not the best sign imo.
Still having fun playing around! Also snagged my exact name so hope it takes off just for that 😂
Also is there a place to find a list of channels or create one? Can’t find any interface, just starting to show up in my feed.
sounds very interesting, never heard about Airchat so far tbh
Great points, this one stuck out. Clubhouse really made a questionable impression for me for voice apps, but I hadn't considered yours. (Specifically the async aspect makes this quite different.
Will give it a shot now, thank you!
Awesome post. Thanks for sharing your insights.
I would like to try it too. How do you get an invite?
Feel free to DM me a phone number to invite on Twitter: https://twitter.com/elie2222