Viral way to party home in the lockdown
his weekend, as much of the world retreated into coronavirus lockdown, it seemed that the favourite activities of many people were going to disappear with them: evening drinks, birthday parties, casual dinners with friends.
But then came the viral video chat app Houseparty. “I’ve been to three or four different parties in one night,” said Andrew, a 30year-old advertising executive, of the app, which enables users to gather spontaneously with friends via video hangout to carry out their usual social activities, just virtually.
With millions of people told to stay at home in a bid to curb the spread of the virus, Houseparty has become an overnight sensation, not only among company-starved millennials and Generation Z teenagers but also their parents.
Last week alone, the San Francisco-based app, owned by Fortnite developer Epic Games, raked in 2-million downloads worldwide, compared with about 130,000 the matching week a month ago, according to data from App Annie. It ranks at number one in the Apple app store in 17 countries including the UK, Spain and Italy.
“Houseparty’s popularity seems to have followed coronavirus around the globe,” said 26-year-old copywriter Miranda di Carcaci, who noticed a few weeks ago that many of her friends in Italy were sharing screenshots on social media of themselves socialising via a video chat app, with groups laughing and sipping glasses of wine from behind their phones.
Considered the more casual and kitsch alternative to rapidly growing video conferencing apps such as Zoom or Google Hangouts, Houseparty has already prompted a new set of social rituals. This weekend, many under lockdown enjoyed dinners and drinks — dubbed “AperiTV” by some — together over the app, while teams at Silicon Valley companies used it to hold “virtual happy hours”.
“Houseparty has a big base around teenagers and always has,” said Ben Rubin, Houseparty’s co-founder, who left the company shortly before its acquisition to work as an
Tentrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm Benchmark. “But with everything that’s going on, a bunch of adults now have the time and need for new connections.”
Launched on what it calls in“September shared 2016, Houseparty has focused experiences” with in-app games such as trivia or screen-sharing services that enable friends to go on dating apps or watch TV programmes together, for example. Users spend an hour on average in the app.
Many are attracted by the spontaneity the format provides: in an effort to mimic an actual house party, where you might find friends chatting in different rooms, the app notifies users when their friends go into the app and shows who is talking to whom, with up to eight people permitted in any one group conversation.
Users can also enter friends’ conversations without their permission, unless they have specifically chosen to “lock” their room.
The 50-strong company has cast itself as a sociallyresponsible alternative to larger social media group Facebook, swearing never to monetise through user data and advertising.
This goal was made easier in June 2019 when it was acquired by Epic Games, maker of free “battle royale” game Fortnite, for an undisclosed amount. For now, its deeper-pocketed owner seems to be bankrolling the app: Houseparty announced earlier in March that its gaming add-ons, its main source of revenue, would be free.
An informed source said that Epic was in a strong position to scale the app amid the spike in interest. Still, Houseparty has struggled with some outages, and had to cull several extra features during the surge.
In the longer term, Houseparty, like the other video chat apps, will battle to prove that it is not a pandemicinduced fad but part of a lasting shift in how we communicate.
For now, though, it is offering light relief to millions. “Literally, the world and his wife have signed up,” said Di Carcaci.
© the Financial Times 2020