We’ll hazard a guess that everyone has seen at least one TED Talk in their lifetime. The Technology Entertainment and Design lectures are everywhere you look, and are enormously popular. Now TED Talks is riding the newest social media wave, partnering up with audio-only platform Clubhouse.

TED Talks enters the Clubhouse

As of today, TED Talks has committed to hosting several rooms on its Clubhouse channel. TechRadar suspects it will run these rooms either as weekly instalments, one-time shows, or as mini-series. The Clubhouse modus operand is certainly gels nicely with the TED formula. Get an audience into a (virtual) room with a speaker, and have them enjoy an interesting talk on anything from a wide variety of subjects. The Clubhouse spin will also allow audience interaction with speakers, through asking questions and offering comments.

Audience engagement is the order of the day here, it seems.

“TED’s mission has always been to share ideas and foster discussion around them,” said TED director of audience development, Carla Zanoni, in a statement to TechRadar. “When ideas and people come together to engage and debate, that’s when the real impact happens.”

The first of TED’s Clubhouse situated talks will be hosted by Clubhouse creator and author A J Jacobs. Titled, “Thank Your Ass Off”, it will be centred around showing gratitude for the unsung heroes in our lives. The show will be hosted weekly, and will invite a number of notable guests to join Jacobs.

Clubhouse has quickly gained traction as not just a place for casual social media engagement, but also as a platform for a relatively unique style of featured content. TED Talks coming on board seems like a natural next step. We’re only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.