Even Xiaomi sniffs out the audio-only chat business, launched by Clubhouse, and prepares its alternative by resurrecting a recently closed app.
Xiaomi launches its own challenge to Clubhouse with Mi Talk. It won't be, however, the old app dedicated to communication, but a completely renewed project, with great potential and mainly oriented to an audience of professionals who will be able to take advantage of it to create new contacts and business opportunities.
The recent history of Xiaomi's app has been rather singular. In fact, only a week after its closure, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has suggested to the brand's followers on the Weibo platform the possibility of giving new life to the communication service, but in a revised and corrected form. In a short time, the conversation has involved over 130 million users of the network while over 140 million have read the discussion, in which the top manager wanted to share some of the plans on the calendar that should anticipate the launch of the new app, planned precisely for 2021.
Will Mi Talk be Clubhouse's antagonistic app?
The official confirmation of the will to resurrect the app from the ashes came just a few days ago, on February 26, when the app's team launched the concise but self-explanatory statement, "Mi Talk, start again." And, given the blockade in China of Clubhouse, it could have all the credentials to carve out a large slice of the public; of course, if it were to catch on, it is not certain that this could not also happen outside the national territory.
Mi Talk, what will the new app be like
A first version of the application, still in a primitive stage of development, has peeped on the Chinese store of the company on February 19, the date of the closure of the old service. At the moment, the app is available only to the company's employees who have a registered and enabled phone number.
Subsequently, Mi Talk will be launched with a closed test phase, which can be accessed once again only by invitation (exactly as it still happens with Clubhouse invitations). Similarly to what already happens with the American counterpart, all the others will be able to register and wait patiently for the pass that will allow them to access the platform.
For those who were already registered to the previous service there is no advantage. In fact, even old subscribers will need to go through the registration process again and stand in line waiting for the green light, as their data will not be transferred to the new reference databases.
Mi Talk, who it will be available for
According to what Xiaomi has stated, the application will be available not only for smartphones made in house but for all devices running Android and iOS. At the moment there is no more targeted information on the timing but, given the growing success of Clubhouse, it would not be surprising if already in the coming months a stable version would appear with which to start experimenting with the potential of Mi Talk.