Mobile social networking app for women, Peanut, is the latest tech company to launch live audio rooms into its product following the success of Clubhouse.
Peanut App Launches Live Audio Rooms
Peanut, which started with a focus on motherhood, has expanded over the years to support women through all life stages, including marriage, pregnancy, and even menopause.
It sees its voice chat feature, which is called "Pods," as a way women on its app can make better connections in a more supportive, safer environment than in other social networking platforms.
The COVID-19 pandemic drove some of the interest in audio-based social networking, as people who had been stuck at home found it helped to fill the gap that in-person networking and social events did in the past.
But, voice chat social networking leader Clubhouse has since seen its model turned into what is now just a feature for massive social media companies like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Discord, and others to adopt.
Peanut's Pods offer the basic features, including a muted audience of listeners who need to virtually raise their hand to speak, emoji reactions, and hosts who can moderate the conversations and invite people to speak, and more.
The company is doing its own in-house moderation on the audio pods to make sure that the conversations do not violate the company's terms. In time, it plans to scale to include other moderators, according to General News World.
Peanut has some similarities with the social networking app Clubhouse, especially when it comes to its design. But, the company believes that it will differentiate its audio experience from the rest of the pack because it is focused on women's issues.
What Makes Peanut Different
Most social networks are usually based on how many likes a user have, how many followers they have, or if they are verified with a blue check.
But according to Peanut founder and CEO Michelle Kennedy, Peanut follows an economy of care, where women are supportive of one another without any desire to chase clout.
The company says it will continue to enforce the safety standards within its Peanut Pods that will make women feel comfortable, as posted on their official Youtube channel. This focus, in particular could attract some of the women, and particularly women of color, who have been targeted with harassment on other platforms.
In time, Peanut envisions using the audio feature to help connect women with those who have specific expertise, like lactation consultants for new mothers of fertility doctors.
However, these will not be positioned as lectures where listeners are required to tune in for hours.
Peanut's design does away with the stage concept from Clubhouse to give everyone equal status, whether they are speaking or not. In the app, users will be able to find interesting chats based on what topics they are already following, and they can avoid being shown other topics by muting them.
The Pods feature is rolling out to Peanut's app starting Apr. 27, where it will reach Peanut's 2 million users.
It will be free to use, like all of the company's features, though the company plans to launch a freemium model with some paid products in the future.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sophie Webster
