When a friend tried to get reporter Melissa Chan to join the app Clubhouse over the summer,

she wasn't interested.

Frankly, it sounded really unappealing to me.

So she wanted to invite me because it was invite only, and it still is invite only.

And I just passed on it.

Why? Why was it not appealing to you?

Because like a lot of startups in Silicon Valley, the founders get their friends to start using the product in the beginning. And so it was all these tech people talking about

financing and entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Clubhouse is a social audio app, meaning that instead of there being groups, like on Facebook,

where people respond to each other's posts, there are rooms, channels really, where up to

5,000 people can be part of a real-time conversation out loud.

Eventually, Melissa got enough clubhouse invitations that curiosity got the better of her,

and she joined.

When I first went on, it was very much exactly like what I expected.

It confirmed all my worst expectations about the app.

You know what? I'm going to do this right now. I'll pull it up.

Yeah, yeah. I asked Melissa to read out some of the room names that she was seeing.

How to brand yourself. Startup school. Nail that interview.

These were not the kinds of rooms that Melissa was interested in.

She lives in Germany and reports on China, human rights, and foreign policy.

And most of what was on Clubhouse was not that.

So for a while, she forgot about the app.

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