Earlier in January this year, Xiaomi announced plans to shut down its messaging app MiTalk, starting from the 19th of February. The Chinese tech giant seems to have now resurrected the app as an audio chat platform in China to attract the Clubhouse audience. This news comes only a couple-odd weeks after Clubhouse got blocked in China.
Audio chat is all the rage these days, thanks to Clubhouse, an audio-based social platform that’s trending among iPhone users. The Android app is in the works right now. Given the popularity of Clubhouse, tech giants including Twitter and Facebook are working to replicate this functionality in their products. While Facebook is working on a separate audio chat app, Twitter is testing Spaces in beta. And as per reports, Xiaomi is now following suit with MiTalk, at least in China. Image: ITHome
The new MiTalk app won’t bring the userbase of the deprecated app. Instead, users will have to sign up and create a new account. As of this writing, MiTalk is in limited testing with invite-only access. Xiaomi hopes to launch MiTalk’s public beta shortly. The app will be available on both Android and iOS. There’s no info on Xiaomi’s plans to expand the app outside China.
