AirChat: The New Social App Combining Twitter and Clubhouse

AirChat is a new social media platform that combines elements of Twitter and Clubhouse. Users speak their posts, and the app transcribes the spoken words, allowing followers to hear the voice of the poster along with seeing the transcription. The app is asynchronous, meaning you don't have to join live conversations but can listen and respond at your convenience. If you make a mistake while speaking, you have the option to re-record your post.

AirChat was built by Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList, and Brian Norgard, a former executive at Tinder. The app's approach to social media is described as 'refreshingly intimate,' as it allows users to hear the actual voices of people they may have known online for years, fostering a sense of having real conversations.

AirChat boasts a high-quality speech-to-text product that is highly accurate in English, even correctly transcribing names of Pokémon. It also performs well in other languages, such as Spanish and Hindi, and sometimes translates speech directly to English. The translations are generally correct, although it is not specified when or why the app chooses to translate instead of transcribe.

Currently, AirChat's user base is predominantly connected to the tech industry, resembling the culture of a San Francisco coffee shop. This could be due to tech enthusiasts typically being early adopters of new apps. The app has introduced a channels feature, with 'Crypto' and 'e/acc' being among the first channels, indicating a focus on pro-tech topics. The culture may evolve as the platform grows and diversifies its user base.

AirChat's content moderation strategy is to be 'hands-off' and empower users with moderation tools. However, this approach raises concerns, as it may not be sufficient for managing content in a platform with a large user base. Comparisons are made to Clubhouse, which faced issues due to lax content moderation, and Substack, which faced backlash for not removing pro-Nazi content. The minimalist approach to moderation could lead to potential issues such as the sharing of copyrighted audio, doxing, or the uploading of CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) without a clear plan to address these situations.