Airchat, a social media app focused on voice communication, is gaining popularity after the success of Clubhouse. Launched in 2023, Airchat has already attracted notable figures such as Sam Altman from OpenAI, angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk from Uber and Facebook, and veteran media person Taylor Lorenz, who specializes in community media reporting.
Similar to Clubhouse, Airchat operates on an invitation-only basis, allowing only those who receive an invitation link to join. However, due to an overwhelming influx of new users, Airchat announced on April 15th that it would temporarily limit each user to a maximum of two invitations. But what makes Airchat so popular and what are its unique features?
At first glance, Airchat’s interface resembles X. Users can post on their own page and choose who to follow. However, the standout feature is that Airchat is primarily a voice-based social media platform. Users cannot type or copy and paste text messages; instead, all posts and comments can only be interacted with through voice messages.
Despite all expressions being through voice recordings, Airchat employs AI transcription to convert the audio into text. Users can still consume information by reading. Additionally, users can include images, links, and like and share any message within a post.
Another distinctive feature of Airchat is the ability to create chat rooms for specific topics or individuals. Users in these chat rooms can freely engage in voice conversations, hosted by the initiating member. However, unlike Clubhouse’s live interactions, Airchat’s chat rooms are more like Line groups where users only send voice messages.
The advantage of non-real-time voice interaction is that users can organize their thoughts more effectively by recording their statements. They have the option to re-record if necessary and choose the timing of their message without interrupting others. This helps alleviate the nervousness of speaking in front of others.
When playing voice messages, the speaker’s profile picture is surrounded by a colorful animation, indicating who is speaking.
Airchat was created by Naval Ravikant, a prominent venture capitalist and founder of AngelList, along with Brian Norgard, former product chief at Tinder. Currently, Airchat’s core engineering team consists of less than 10 people. Airchat aims to address the simple need of reconnecting people and fostering genuine conversations in a world dominated by social media platforms where discussions often turn into battles.
Naval, one of the co-founders, stated on X that Airchat’s core mission is to reestablish authentic connections between people and provide a place for sincere dialogue. As people spend more time on social media, it has become a stressful platform where different opinions clash and individuals are constantly compared. Naval believes that voice messages can improve this situation. Compared to text, voice messages convey warmth and are less prone to misinterpretation. People tend to be more considerate when speaking, which is why the Airchat team believes the platform can facilitate effective discussions.
Foreign media have varying opinions about Airchat. Adam Soccolich, a business consultant interviewed by Forbes, praises Airchat’s design as it allows users to join content discussions at their own convenience without the time constraints of real-time interactions, avoiding the fear of missing out. However, Anthony Ha, a senior reporter from TechCrunch, believes that Airchat still fails to address the existing drawbacks of voice messages. Ha points out that Airchat’s default playback speed for voice messages is twice the normal speed, which sounds unnatural and contradicts the platform’s goal of conveying “human warmth.” However, when users adjust the speed back to normal, lengthy voice messages may be skipped or not fully grasped. Overcoming these inherent limitations of voice communication will likely be a major challenge for Airchat in the future.
Sources:
Forbes, TechCrunch
Editor: Su Rouwei