As more and more social media platforms start cooking up their own Clubhouse clones, Instagram is adding new features to its existing livestreaming service to get in on the voice chat craze. On Thursday, Instagram announced it’s rolling out the option to turn off your audio or video while using Instagram Live.
Instagram tested these new features publically on Monday during an Instagram Live broadcast between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. Starting today, global audiences on both iOS and Android will have access to them too.
“We want to build on our Live product and offer even more ways for our creator community to drive serendipitous, engaging conversation with each other and their audience,” a company spokesperson told Gizmodo via email. “By giving people the option to mute their audio or turn off their video, hosts will have the added flexibility for their livestream experience, as the added functionality could help decrease pressure to look or sound a certain way while broadcasting live.”
As for now, broadcasters won’t be able to turn on or off the video or mute others in their livestreams, but Instagram said it’s working on adding these kinds of options soon.
In a similar move, Instagram’s parent company Facebook added Live Audio Rooms to its platform and Messenger app back in March. It also has a Clubhouse-inspired Q&A platform called Hotline in the works.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Slack, and a slew of other online platforms have jumped at the chance to develop their own voice chat features in recent months, trying to capitalise on the relaxed, “video off” experience popularised by Clubhouse.
Whether or not it’s just a flash in the pan remains to be seen, but Clubhouse’s investors sure seem to have faith in its staying power. The company was reportedly valued at roughly $US4 ($5) billion amid negotiations with investors during a round of funding earlier this month. However, Clubhouse’s explosive growth is starting to show signs of waning, Insider reports. According to data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower, the number of monthly app installs worldwide tanked between February and March, from 9.6 million downloads to 2.7 million downloads respectively.
Clubhouse’s rise in popularity has been partially tied to the coronavirus pandemic keeping many people stuck inside and pushing them toward socially distanced opportunities, such as public audio chatrooms, to connect. With the world slowly beginning to open back up again as vaccines roll out, it appears Clubhouse shtick may be wearing thin for some users.