Exclusive | Agora, the audio company powering Clubhouse, says the internet is ripe for genuine real-time interaction
- Agora, which supplies its audio solutions to hot social app Clubhouse, boasts technologies designed to support real-time conversations among tens of thousands of participants
- The Shanghai and California-based company has come under scrutiny over data privacy
Agora may not be as well-known as Clubhouse, the audio chat app that has recently become one of the hottest social media phenomena since Snapchat – but the Chinese-founded company believes that its real-time communication technology, which powers Clubhouse’s voice chat function, will change the internet.
Just as text, pictures and videos have shaped how people interact online, real-time audio – or livecast, as Agora calls it – will create a new medium that is more engaging than today’s podcast, said Tony Wang, Agora’s co-founder and head of Asia-Pacific and emerging markets, in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post.
Agora, which has close to 1,000 employees worldwide, powers the real-time audio or video functions in many applications, including Clubhouse. While neither Clubhouse nor Agora has confirmed their relationship, people familiar with the matter told the Post that Clubhouse uses Agora’s technology. Agora’s Wang has declined to comment on Clubhouse.
Although real-time audio or video may seem commonplace in an age when group calls via Zoom or Google Meet have become ubiquitous, the era of true real-time communication is only just arriving, said Wang.