Amazon Takes on Clubhouse with Social Audio Mobile App Amp

On the second anniversary of Clubhouse, Amazon.com has introduced Amp, a competing social audio mobile app where users can create radio shows, be a DJ and play songs from Amazon Music, the retailer wrote on its blog Tuesday (March 8).

“Radio has always been about music and culture,” John Ciancutti, Amazon’s vice president, wrote. “But imagine if you were inventing the medium…today. You’d combine what people love about radio, spontaneous talk, new music discovery, diverse personalities and broad programming, with all that’s made possible by today’s technology.”

Ciancutti added that this new channel can be created by anyone with a voice, a phone and a love of music who wants their own show.

Read more: Amazon’s Amp Shows Seeds of Super App Being Sown

“Amp makes it possible for you to grab the mic and run the airwaves,” he wrote. “We are creating a new version of radio that will have an infinite dial of shows.”

The app is available in a limited U.S. beta version.

In 2020, San Francisco-based Clubhouse launched what it called the hottest thing in the evolving social media sector. One year later, the chat-room service boasted two million weekly users, and $100 million to grow its platform, thanks to an investment by Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.

Read also: Listen Up: Clubhouse Takes Social Media Into The Audio Zone

At the time, Andreessen partner Andrew Chen wrote Clubhouse is the opposite of a video clip or a short post because it rewards discussion and exploration.

“Clubhouse could not have come at a better time for social media,” he said. “It reinvents the category in all the right ways, from the content consumption experience to the way people engage each other, while giving power to its creators,” he said.

Now, Amp said it is developing a home where anyone can create live shows alongside some of the biggest names in the industry.

Hip-hop mega star Nicki Minaj is expected to bring her radio show, “Queen Radio,” to Amp, Amazon said.