Live Audio is The Next in Thing

Hearing the beloved voices has always been exciting. This has led to the invention of telephone way back in the 18th century. The same intimacy for spoken word makes audio social media trendy in these days of pandemic isolation. Businesses are now looking to leverage this medium to engage with the customers.

What is audio social medium? 1

Audio social medium is the voice-only hip app network for conversation. The users can drop in online on an ongoing conversation or host their own chat. 

Audio chatting and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Cappuccino have been widely popular. But what makes audio social medium different is its social networking feature. 

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The Trend

The pioneer of voice networking is Discord, the US based platform. As of 2020 it has 140 million users. Other leading players include Locker Room (Spotify) with 158 million users and Clubhouse with 18 million users. The popularity of voice networking has prompted other tech giants enter the fray. Twitter has just launched (December 2020) its Spaces and Facebook is launching its Live Audio Rooms very soon. Though these platforms presently focus on informal chats on sports, music and podcasts, it is only a matter of time before they get into business communications.2

Advantages

  1. Audio focussed media relieve zoom fatigue. 
  2. One can take part in community chats by reasonably safeguarding the identity.
  3. Deceiving by using fake profiles and images does not happen.
  4. The medium can be accessed from anywhere without much anxiety about looks.  
  5. Audio chat can be initiated forthwith without planning in case of zoom meet etc.

Concerns

  1. Concealing identities can be detrimental at times. 
  2. Voice-only spaces, especially community chats, can get ugly if not moderated properly.
  3. The medium is more of informal nature. 

Conclusion

Live audio could be the future of social networking. For spoken words are more intimate and if you chat voice-only, it tends to be informal.

Postscript                                                                                                                                                Networking is about nurturing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with the people you meet. Networking helps managers in more ways than one.  

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Key Words  

#Audio Social Medium#Zoom fatigue#

Source Articles 

  1. The future of social networks might be audio. MIT Technology Review.                                        
  2. Spotify launches ‘Greenroom’

Discussion Question   

If you are hosting an informal chat with your friends group, what medium would you prefer; audio or video meet? Why?