Airchat: Hearing is Believing

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Airchat, a new social app, came out of beta yesterday and it’s creating a stir.

Launched by entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Brian Norgard, the former product head at Tinder, Airchat is best understood as a voice version of Twitter or Instagram.

That doesn’t, however, begin to capture the excitement of using the platform or its potential to become the next big thing in social media. 

Airchat taps into the reality that tonality profoundly affects how we communicate.

Naval also clearly hopes that requiring people to record comments and observations will reduce the propensity to respond to text-only posts with road rage.

“It’s not the normal social media experience, and that’s what happens when we communicate again with our voices and our faces instead of from behind keyboards,” Naval posted.

“Online text-only media has given us this delusion that people can’t get along, but actually everybody can get along,” he wrote. “It just requires the natural voice.”

Airchat works like this: You push a button to record a short snippet which is transcribed into text using AI. It’s posted as a text/audio file. You can follow other members, comment on posts and send direct messages. 

Some commentators have compared Airchat to a walkie talkie, but that misses the point. It is not real-time, two-way communication. It’s asynchronous.

And that’s a big reason Airchat will probably avoid the fate of an earlier audio product, Clubhouse, which convened groups to listen to specific events.

The media coverage of Airchat will inevitably suggest it is a threat to Twitter. The articles will also cite a cautionary note about Clubhouse and Meta’s Threads, which has seen interest wane.

Those observations are as predictable as they are unhelpful. 

Airchat won’t kill what used to be called Twitter. And unlike Threads, Airdrop offers genuine new product features and, thanks to Nogard, thoughtful design.

Airchat will likely find an audience because the voice feature offers something magical.

Using the platform for even a short time you can see how it’s different. At a basic level you could summarize the social media landscape like this:

Twitter        =  text

Instagram  =  pictures

TikTok        =  video 

Airchat      =  voice

Airchat will be another destination social media managers have to monitor.

Adoption is always challenging, of course, but Naval’s presence should help promote the app. 

During the first 24 hours, the platform had a bit of a carnival feel to it, with well-known tech and media personalities like Gary V and Taylor Lorenz joining and others posting questions about features.

Part of the charm was having both Norgard and Naval online actively answering questions big and small about why they built the app and how it works. 

Comparing Airchat to a dinner party, Naval encouraged people to introduce new members. 

No one can say for sure whether the app will take off, reach cruising altitude and survive. 

But if it does, it’s a good bet it will evolve in unforeseen ways. 

Though it seems designed for pithy observations, already this morning some people were reading longer excerpts. I could see it being used like a public version of the Moth, where creatives do dramatic readings of their work.

I’d recommend giving Airchat a try.

Hearing is believing. 

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

CHART OR TABLE: This kind of data is usually displayed in a chart but I find the table version here really hits you harder.

KURT VONNEGUT: “I use a typewriter.” Writing advice from Kurt Vonnegut.

CALENDAR: Everyone is evidently very scheduled. How is there ever time for anything serendipitous. This cannot be good.

DRIES VAN NOTEN: I love the way Dries Van Noten bowed out.

PAUL GRAHAM: Do you want comfort or council? It’s a great way to respond when you aren’t sure what people need.