Silicon Valley tech sorts love their edgy new social media startups. The most recent is Airchat, an audio-first social app that lets its customers categorical their each thought by posting brief snippets of audio. All of those snippets are served in a unending feed, a la Twitter. There are replies, there are DMs, however there’s no typing; it’s all spoken audio. The platform is solely invitation-only for now, so the present consumer base is made up largely of Valley insiders, optimistic enterprise capitalists, and crypto evangelists, which positively informs the varieties of conversations you’ll discover on the app. When you’re considering this sounds loads like Clubhouse, the audio-based social area that flared up throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, properly, you are not too far off.
This week on Gadget Lab, we discuss to WIRED’s Director of Particular Initiatives Alan Henry about making mouth sounds on Airchat and whether or not the buzzy new social startup will enchantment to anybody outdoors the Silicon Valley technosphere.
Present Notes
Learn Lauren’s story about Airchat.
Suggestions
Alan recommends the Kurzgesagt YouTube channel. Lauren recommends Julian Chokkattu’s assessment of the Humane Ai Pin and Scoop, a film about journalism that’s streaming on Netflix. Mike recommends our new sibling podcast, WIRED Politics Lab.
Alan will be discovered on social media @halophoenix. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the principle hotline at @GadgetLab. The present is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Photo voltaic Keys.
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