Author|Zhang Xiaoxue
E-mail|[email protected]
Over the past week, Silicon Valley has been flooded with links and people rushing to flock to a new invitation-based mysterious AI social app. In just eight days after its launch, it was downloaded more than 50,000 times, and new users even overwhelmed the platform at one point, forcing it to temporarily close the registration function.
The social media app that has suddenly exploded is called Airchat, which encourages users to "chat casually".
It's called "Audible X" or "Text Clubhouse", and it combines the two in the form of a feed and audio first—users can't type, and they can only post and reply. And what is eye-catching is that this "AI Native" social product integrates the latest AI technology into the overall interaction, and the large model behind it can synchronously transcribe the user's speech into text, and can also accurately translate according to the language of your choice. When someone scrolls through the stream, a sound and text are presented at the same time.
Since each user initially only opened two invitation slots, it was full of the attraction of private circles, coupled with the new medium of voice and text, Airchat instantly went viral among the most "advanced" people in Silicon Valley, such as technology people, venture capitalists, startup partners, and technology media reporters.
It also quickly attracted a number of celebrities in the circle, including OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, legendary American wine merchant Gary Vaynerchuk, and venture capitalist and Musk confidant Jason Calacanis, among others.
Just as dazzling as these celebrity users are the two famous co-founders of Airchat.
One is Naval Ravikant, a well-known angel investor in the United States and the former CEO and founder of AngelList, the world's largest venture capital platform. Known as the originator of equity crowdfunding, he has many followers and has personally invested in more than 200 technology companies, including Uber, Twitter, FourSquare, Clubhouse, etc.
Naval has also published a book called "Navarre", which tells his experience from self-made to financial freedom, and shares how to live a rich and happy life "without luck", and the Chinese version is very popular among readers.
The other is Brian Norgard, the former chief product officer of Tinder, the most dating app in the United States, and during his tenure, important features such as Tinder Gold, Superlike, and Boost greatly drove user growth and helped Tinder become one of the world's highest-grossing mobile apps at the time.
The two of them created Airchat this time, and the goal was simple: to reconnect with people and provide a place to start honest conversations, "Think about it, how long has it been since you really felt the energy of socializing on social media?"
The interface is similar to X, asynchronous voice interaction, and the gospel of social fear
In fact, the first version of Airchat was launched as early as October last year, but the attributes were more miscellaneous at that time and did not cause much splash. In April of this year, the development team removed video and text features and simplified the interface, and a new version of the app was launched that relied solely on voice, which quickly exploded on social networks.
Visually, Airchat's interface is intuitive and similar to X. When you launch the app, you'll be taken to a timeline-sorted voice feed. Tap to play a sound and read the text at the same time.
Users can follow, comment, like, retweet, and send private messages to each other, but everything is expressed in the form of sound. Press and hold the microphone button at the bottom of the screen to start recording, and your voice notes and transcripts will be automatically published as soon as you release them.
If you are not satisfied with your performance, you can delete the re-recording, highlight it, or share it on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms. You can also add external pictures or links after recording, but you can't type anyway.
Judging from the current user feedback, there seems to be no limit to the recording time of a single message, and some people even said it for an hour in a row for the ultimate test. If you don't have the patience to listen to some voice posts that are too long, you can choose to pause and only browse the text.
Originally, Airchat defaulted to 2x speed playback, which has also become a major feature of the product. It was described by Wired magazine as "giving everyone a slightly exhilarating feeling of sipping a cup of Philz coffee just after waking up, and then immediately jumping into the bathtub for a cold bath." "Admittedly, this will make people sound more confident and strong, but it will soon be reported by the community as noisy, and the speed of speech is too fast to keep up. Now Airchat has changed the default to the original speed, and users can also adjust the speed of 1x, 2x, and 3x by clicking the play button.
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This voice-first format reminds a lot of people of Clubhouse.
This dusty audio app was the pinnacle of popularity during the global pandemic in 2021. Its interface design mimics a real-life club or meeting place, and users can also join the chat room through an invitation-only system, and they can have zero-distance real-time voice conversations with celebrities such as Musk and Kai-Fu Lee online. It's just that over time, after people resumed offline socializing, Clubhouse lost its sustained value and gradually faded out of people's sight.
Is Airchat a second Clubhouse? In fact, there is a big difference between the two.
Compared to Clubhouse's multi-person open chat rooms, Airchat emphasizes one-on-one communication, and each conversation between two people forms a separate stream of threads.
At the same time, Airchat is an asynchronous exchange. Able to organize the discussion completely through recording, and can be re-recorded if it is not well spoken, which reduces the tension of speaking in front of a group of people, and I am friendly.
According to Norgard, this approach removes stage fright from the participants, because "you can try to write as many messages here as you want and no one will know." In fact, in his conversations with early adopters, he found that "most of the people who use Airchat today are very introverted and shy." ”
Airchat's voice content is also not lost after the chat is disbanded like Clubhouse, but is preserved using AI's speech-to-text feature, which can be traced, and the transcription experience is not only fast but also of good quality. Some obvious mood words "uh" will appear in the record, but slight pauses and meaningless filler words will be edited to be accurate in meaning, support Chinese, and can be translated into multiple languages. So overall, Airchat is more like an audio version of Twitter powered by AI technology.
Airchat怎么就火了?
Airchat's popularity seems to have taken it overnight. In addition to the asynchronous communication mentioned above to eliminate social fear, and the influence of the two founders themselves in the entrepreneurial and venture capital circles, the development team believes that Airchat is a refreshing and intimate way to socialize. Unlike rigid words, sound is warm and can bring richer expression to each person's personality.
Many people have known each other online for years and only heard real voices after following each other on Airchat. When avatars, text, and voices are combined, it creates a more realistic, three-dimensional portrait that makes you more attractive on social networks.
In addition, some celebrity accounts on other platforms may be operated by a team. But on Airchat, you can clearly hear and confirm that this is who you are. The marketing momentum of these celebrity users on X, as well as the invitation-based entry threshold, also bring a strong FOMO mentality to most ordinary people, eager to join the circle to find out.
So what does Airchat look like? Some media commented that it now feels like a coffee shop in San Francisco — most people have some connection to the tech industry on the app. This is perhaps because tech enthusiasts are often the first to try new things. And the main content on the current platform also greatly reflects the pan-pop culture of the Silicon Valley tech circle.
When Airchat first launched its channel feature, the first two channels that appeared were "Crypto" and "e/acc", where people discussed the app itself, artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, and "immortality", each with a strong San Francisco-esque symbol. Although there are also channels for coffee, astrology, music, sports, etc., the loudest and most sought after are the topics of science and technology.
How to make a profit and how long can it last?
Ravikant said that at the moment Airchat is mostly funded from his own pocket, "Sam Altman also blindly invested some money, he likes anything AI-related", and the monetization plan of the app itself is still unclear.
When asked "when you might start seeing ads, whether audio or whatever," Ravikant said, "there's no monetization pressure on companies at all," and "I don't care about monetization at all." We'll even spend a small amount of money to operate this thing if necessary. The implication is that it is not bad for money.
Another potential concern for the outside world is content moderation. Now any user on the platform can record any content and post it publicly to the timeline. On an Airchat channel called "War", someone is exporting some hard-line views, unsubstantiated news reports, and even promoting Nazis... Others post voice provocations and name-calling, while other users can only block and mute their voices.
In response, Ravikant explained on Airchat that it would put "as many moderation tools as possible in the hands of users". He thinks Airchat should operate like a dinner party – you don't kick someone out of the house just because they're involved in a civilized debate. But if they start screaming at you, it's wise to intervene. "We don't want to censor the content, but we do censor the tone," Ravikant said.
What if someone impersonates or divulges someone else's personal information? It may seem tricky, but it doesn't seem like an immediate concern for these two successful Silicon Valley tycoons. It is enough to create a new communication paradigm now, to lead a wave of popular social trends, and to leave a mark on history. Whether it is short-lived or long-lasting, the two of them are walking and watching from the Buddha's land.
Ravikant once described the app as "I want a family reunion in my pocket." I want to be able to pull out my phone and chat with funny, likable, witty people at any time. ”
On Sunday night, when Airchat reopened to iOS users, Ravikant also posted a voice message: "Oh my God, I've got to go to bed," and his voice was exhausting, "but I'm having the best conversation here." ”
(Airchat is now open for registration for users in the United States and Europe, interested partners can download and experience, other regions still need an invitation link~)