Facebook’s Clubhouse Competitor Launches Today in the US

• "Live Audio Rooms" is Facebook's take on Clubhouse, and it rolls out today in the US.
• It comes with quite a few interesting and useful features that are available for select users.
• Podcasts and Soundbites are also on the table.

Facebook's "Live Audio Rooms" is out today: a place where people can have real-time chats. It brings a lot of exciting features for users and positions itself as Clubhouse's competitor. Even though the idea is not new, it adds a few things to the things we've seen with Clubhouse, and it is expected to be available to everyone on the Facebook app by the summer.

For now, the company is testing it with some Facebook Groups and a few public figures based in the US. They can start hosting rooms through the main Facebook iOS app, but the people who join can come from both iOS and Android. Anyone can be invited as a speaker, and up to 50 people can speak at once. The number of allowed listeners is not limited - opposed to Clubhouse, which has room size caps.

The first thing that the company proudly presents is a set of audio creation tools that offer pro features made easy for standard users - such as speech-to-text and voice morphing - who can now mix music from Facebook’s Sound Collection, audio tracks, a growing collection of sound effects, voice effects, and filters. These will be made available within the Facebook app.

All of the above let users create Soundbites, a short-form sound format that is perfect for content creators. Of course, Facebook will start the testing phase with a few creators, and then the feature will be made available for everyone.

Additionally, within the next few months, podcasts will come with multiple playback controls, including the sought-after option of listening while the screen is off. The social media giant promises recommendations based on your interests and the possibility of commenting and recommending them to friends - all directly in the Facebook app.