Spotify launched its Clubhouse lookalike, Greenroom, back in mid-June, not so much thunderous applause as to a resounding, “Oh. Okay.”
Now, over a month down the line, it’s been picked up by 240,000 people (or devices at least), paltry compared to its mainline audience and its biggest competitor (which was recently released in full, finally).
Greenroom’s growing pains
If you’re not caught up, Greenroom began as Locker Room, an audio-chat app developed by Betty Labs, and was specifically geared for talking about sports. Hence the name. Spotify acquired Betty Labs and transformed the app into what it is now: a “live audio experience” like Clubhouse and its many cousins.
To date, Greenroom’s standalone app has (according to data from Sensor Tower, via Tech Crunch) been downloaded 141,000 times via the Apple App store, and the Google Play Store indicates that it’s been downloaded over 100,000 times, totalling around 241,000 downloads.
This is surprisingly low. Spotify is one of the biggest music streaming platforms, with over 345 million active users at the end of 2020, according to the app analytics site Business of Apps. We would never assume that every Spotify user would be inclined to jump onto any of the platforms endeavours but with a user base that vast we did expect Greenroom to appeal to more than 240,000 people.
The figure becomes even less impressive when you take into account that a portion of those downloads existed before Spotify entered the fray, back when Greenroom was still Locker Room. And keep in mind that 240,000 downloads don’t mean 240,000 active users. There’s a high chance a lot of users could have downloaded the app, found that it just wasn’t for them, and neglected to delete it.
All this is in comparison to trailblazer Clubhouse’s whopping 30+ million total downloads. Look, this doesn’t necessarily mean Greenroom is a flop, just that it’s got a long way to go, and it’s going there slowly. It will be interesting to see how this stacks up in comparison to other Clubhouse doppelgangers, but what it says for the moment is rather clear: you can’t beat the original.