On June 2, India became the largest market on Android for Clubhouse, an invite-only audio-based social app, which has become hugely popular last year. The India downloads, which languished for weeks, received a huge boost after the Android release, clocking a million downloads in a fortnight.
Little surprise then that Clubhouse decided to host its first town hall for its community in India at 8 PM on June 2, with its co-founders Rohan Seth, Paul Davison, as well as top executives Anu Atluru, Aarthi Ramamurthy and Stephanie Simon in attendance.
While there was a lot of anticipation, with thousands of people tuning in, Clubhouse's decision to fall back on cliches and tropes for its India outreach came in for disappointment from some quarters.
The name of the room for starters was Jan Sabha (town hall in Hindi). Davison had changed his picture to feature India’s iconic monument Taj Mahal. Going by Davison’s account, the picture was taken years ago when he visited India.
The call to have a person translate from English to Hindi was baffling. Germany-based Natasha Malhi, acted as a translator for the session attended by Indians and non-Indians. Davison, who is always pumped up and enthusiastic when he talks, spoke about India being a vital market. “The Indian community is so…so… important to us.”
“We are working hard to understand the specific needs of the Indian community and building our international team right now,” he added. Among other things, the firm is also looking at bringing translation and monetisation tools such as payments and tips to the creators in the coming months.
Every line spoken by him was translated by Natasha for a perceived Hindi audience in India. Ironically, a majority of the rooms in Clubhouse India today are in Malayalam, with the Malayali community taking the app by storm with their discussions on eclectic subjects -- from parota to egg puffs to spoof rooms with fictitious characters to politics.
The team had also featured four influencers, including popular YouTuber Tanmay Bhat, and Vivek Tuteja to interact with the founders. All of these conversations were translated by Malhi to Hindi.
For Clubhouse, India is important. A position it didn’t have for over a year since the launch in March 2020. Well, compared to the 3.7 million downloads in the US and 1.9 million in Japan, according to AppAnnie data, there is no way India will be in focus with a little over 90,000 installs. It was not even in the top 20 countries for Clubhouse. This was till May 9.
All that changed last week when India became the largest Android users with over 1 million downloads. The India town hall was a reflection of the nation’s sudden rise in status.
Predictably, Clubhouse's cliched approach for an incredibly diverse Indian community didn't go down well with many users. Right after the Clubhouse town hall ended, about 200 users started a session about how disappointing it was. Their main concern was using Hindi as a medium of translation, and lack of representation in inviting influencers to speak with the founders.
Parmeg, a Clubhouse user, said in the room, “These translations need to stop. Not everyone speaks Hindi in India. When English is a universal language, using that would be fine.”
“If you are translating into Hindi, use other languages like Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali also. I conduct most of my sessions in English and using it would have been just fine,” added another.
Just like language, influencers who were called to interact with the founders were considered random and lacked transparency on how people were selected, according to the users.
According to the creators, while Tanmay Bhat is popular, he isn’t a Clubhouse regular. Chintan, who was one of the speakers in the session, pointed out that it is important to call on stage influencers who are attracting people to Clubhouse by creating interesting rooms. While Bhat might be popular, he said, people like him do not help sustain users on the platform, the creators do.
In response to a tweet airing the concern on language, Ramamurthy said they plan to hold these sessions in various languages. India is the last growth market for Internet companies globally, poised to have the largest number of Internet users in the world. With Twitter Spaces and also Indian alternatives such as Leher and Firework gaining ground, Clubhouse would do well to take note of its users' concerns.Clubhouse's first town hall for India: Hindi translation baffles many - Moneycontrol
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