How to party in quarantine? There's Houseparty

In these days of quarantine, XChannel (a consulting firm specialized in marketing strategies) took a survey to demonstrate a predictable trend: the boom of video-chats both in Italy and all over the World, that took back to life some old-fashioned social media apps as Skype, Apple FaceTime, Hangout and Microsoft Team. Among them, there's been one app in particular that marked its highest ratings since its development: Houseparty is the most downloaded app right now and it's most used to have a party without needing to move from our couches.

Houseparty was born in 2016 from the ashes of Merkaat (the "amateur" live-streaming app that was quickly defeated by Facebook, Twitter & co.), but in these days has reached an important place in the app's market (part of the Epic Games group). Its concept is basic: it's a social networking service that enables group video chatting through mobile and desktop apps (and it does it for free). Its goal is clear: to party in the house.

Thought it's not so different from the most-consolidated services as Skype or Apple FaceTime, the strength of Houseparty lies in its simplicity: it has a very intuitive interface that reminds us the one of late Snapchat. Once you've signed up, with your telephone number you can start to add friends and organize your own “party”. Houseparty's calls are not simply video-chats: instead, users enter in different “rooms” with a maximum of 8 people where they're free to communicate with the entire group of their friends. There is no limit to the number of rooms you can be in at the same time: it just depends on your will (and your popularity, of course). Furthermore, if you're not really a talker Houseparty has some extras: you can choose to play some games such as Trivia or Quick Draw.

Somebody says that's a revolution, but to be honest the trend is not brand-new. Skype-dating has been a thing for so many years now, mostly to keep in touch with all of the friends who moved abroad, as well as the habit to watch a movie or eat together even when living apart. That could be the reason why Houseparty has success mostly among millenials: their generation has grown up communicating with MSN and Chat Roulette, it's really attached to the video-chat smart talking (and not just talking) and it's used to a lower resolution of the video, for sure.

The reception, though, is been crazy: last weekend, the app has registered a crazy amount of downloads (on average, users spend approximately 51 minutes a day on the app in group or one-on-one chats). Many users posted the screenshots of their parties on social media, wearing sunglasses at night, playing on their balconies with mixers and making some music for their online friends. And for those who are not the life of the party, they chose Houseparty to communicate with heir families too, maybe even for the traditional Sunday lunch.

We're all waiting for better times, in the meantime millennials know how to fight the boredom. Though it's still not clear if this mania will survive when we'll be back to our routines: who knows if the "online happy hour" will defeat the tradition of a face-to-face cheers in our favorite bar.