Clubhouse announced the launch of its new direct messaging service, Backchannel on July 14, 2021. Tbh, netizens are pretty excited with this ‘cause now you can smoothly slide into DMs and chat! Backchannel has both 1:1 and group chat, and an optional second inbox for message requests.
According to Clubhouse, the usage of Backchannel is:
“Discuss your rooms in real-time.
If you’re a speaker, you can use Backchannel to chat with your co-hosts, plan what question to ask next, or decide who to pull up from the audience. If you’re a listener, you can chat with your other friends in the audience any time you’re in a room. Just tap the airplane icon—or swipe left—to access the chat thread.
Send and receive questions from the audience.
If you’re a speaker, you can now take questions from people via text—and use that to decide who to call up from the audience. If you’re a listener, you can now submit questions, even if you’re not able to come up on stage.
Say thanks to someone.
Receive a payment? A good question? An invite to a great room? Use Backchannel to say thank you.
Plan your events.
A lot of work can go into planning a good event. Now you can use Backchannel to coordinate with your co-hosts, organize questions, decide on guests, and collaborate before you go live.
Chat with your Clubhouse friends.
When you meet people on Clubhouse, it’s nice to be able to keep the conversation going after the room ends. Now with Backchannel, you can. 🙂”
To find Backchannel, tap on the airplane ✈️ icon at the bottom right on Clubhouse’s home screen. You will notice the pen and paper 📝 icon located in the top right corner. With this, you can create and send private or group messages. Anyone on Clubhouse can send you message requests, even if they don’t follow you. But only those whom you follow will appear in the message tab.
Another way to message is by tapping the airplane icon on a user’s profile. The airplane icon is only visible if the user has kept messages turned on to everyone. Also, another prerequisite is they should be on your follower list. There’s also the option to block and report that you can use if deemed necessary. Unfortunately, the option to delete chats is not yet enabled.
In a group message, everyone can view and message. Doesn’t matter if they follow you or not. Also, mind you, groups are limited to only fifteen members for now. Coming to adding and removing group members, well, only moderators can do that. Oh, you can also leave the group by yourself if you want to. But the moderator’s ability is limited. They can’t add people who have blocked them to groups.
As stated by Notion, “If you have been added to a group along with someone you block, you will see a warning that someone you block is in the thread with an option to remove yourself from the thread.” Btw, did you know Clubhouse is hosting sessions with Ted Talks? If not, then check out Clubhouse Started a New Partnership with Ted Talks.
