Thread by @screwednuts

Spotify just launched @SpotifyGrnroom (GR) to compete with @Clubhouse (CH), and here are my few takeaways.

#spotify #greenroom #clubhouse

1. UI/UX - Home Screen

GR has a boxy design & makes better use of the negative space. [also, love the green colour palette]

CH on the other hand has a very packed(one might say, clumsy) design, and fits many rooms in a page.

2A. UI/UX(Emphasis) - Font Size

GR in its UX is more subject-centric than speaker-centric.

See how the font size of speakers differs from the font size of the 'name of the room' in the images above.

2B. UI/UX(Emphasis) - Picture

While both use almost the same space to display a picture, GR only uses 2 for a room, while CH has more than 15.

Purely on UX, GR looks to lay emphasis on community rather than individual, which is a UX route CH has taken.

3. UI/UX - Search

CH on average shows 10 words in your bio, whereas GR has close to 30, without making it look clumsy.

4A. UI/UX - Starting a Room

Both have a pretty big button, which is hard to miss.

Things get different when you click on them, though.

4B. Starting a CH Room - Part 1

You can start
• Open Room - with all of CH
• Closed Room - with friends
• Club Room - with club members

There are no constraints to starting a room.

4C. Starting a CH Room - Part 2

Adding a topic is optional.

However, the UX for adding a topic is pretty bad.
It is a 2-step process, which involves a pop-up.

Once you start a room, you do not have an option to change that either (in case, the conversation diverges)

4D - Starting a GR Room - Part 1

UI/UX is pretty great.

Name of Room & Name of Show is optional, however, you can change them later.

A neat feature that many might miss, it auto capitalizes the first letter of a new word. [Attention to Detail]

4E - Starting a GR Room - Part 2

Selecting a group is a must, which confirmed a hypothesis I made a few tweets ago. This is a community focussed platform, and not individual focussed. [more on that later]

You can't start a room without adding a group.

4F - Starting a GR Room - Part 3

There are certain groups that don't exist yet (refer image) and there is no other way to create them (right now).

It feels as if you're getting constrained by the Spotify devs in selecting a group.

5A. UI/UX - In-Room Experience

GR wins this, hands down (pun intended)
[Again, Community vs Individual]

Size of the button for "asking to speak"
GR >>> CH (see image)

GR almost encourages you to participate in the conversation.
while CH doesn't want you to talk but listen.

5B. UI/UX - In-Room Experience

CH uses an outline on the speaker which becomes super hard to find.

GR uses a green colour halo on the picture of the speaker, which is easy to distinguish. [see video in next tweet]

5C. UI/UX - In-Room Experience

Green Room Video

6A. UI/UX - Navigation

Apart from creating a room, both have the following features (icons)

• 🏠 Home
• 🔍 Search
• 🗓️ Calendar
• 🔔 Notifications
• 👨 Profile
• 📨 Invite (for Clubhouse)

The UX for navigating the app is significantly different.

6B. UI/UX - Navigation

GR uses a flat hierarchy while CH uses a tree hierarchy.

What this means is, if you need to access features A, B, C & D in CH, you have to go through Home every single time.

While GR uses these as fixed icons on the screen.

7. Monetization

Both GR & CH have started monetization programs in the US. However, the audio streaming market has diverse creators. I am hoping this will be rolled out globally ASAP.

See
greenroomcreatorfund.byspotify.com
joinclubhouse.com/blog/creator-f…

8A. Reputation Metric

GR, as I said earlier is aiming to be a community platform.
It's more like Reddit than CH.

It is reflected in their new metric, GEMS 💎, which works similar to how upvotes/karma work on Reddit.

You can tap & send a gem to the speaker during a conversation

8B. Gaming Reputation

Like all metrics, this will also be gamed. Actually, it is being gamed by the early adopters of the platform.

-----
P.S. - I went in one of the rooms for about a minute to hear what the conversation is about & received 2 gems. 😂

9. Distribution

GR has a native feature to record your room & send the recording to your e-mail.
CH conversations are recorded through third-party apps.

This might seem like a bug/feature debate.

My take on this,
It's better to have it and not use it than not have it at all.

10. Joining the platform
(quite an ironic sequence)

CH is an invitation-based app, which makes sure that it is free from bots.
For GR, you need to have a Spotify account, which makes it an open platform, and susceptible to bot users.

11. Philosophy of the Platform

Although they seem quite similar right now, the nuanced differences could make them significantly different in the future.

As I've said earlier, GR is a community focussed platform whereas CH is individual focussed.

Final Thoughts:

I tried to write a unbiased take on CH & GR, however, I like @Spotify , @eldsjal & how they're owning the audio domain. (so might be a bit biased)

So, if you like it, then probably like it and RT it.