The Corona Era now has its own app: Houseparty!

Every era brings its own set of companies. In the 1990s when you needed earnest business to come to the Internet you had the likes of Amazon and Google. When the Internet became mature and one had more leisure time, Facebook surged. With bandwidth came the likes of YouTube. With the mobile came WhatsApp. As mobile usage became more flippant, Tik Tok ruled.

So it is befitting that the Coronovirus Covid-19 Work From Home lockdown era should also get an App of its own: Houseparty. This group video chat app is the latest sensation and in many countries has become the most downloaded app in recent times. While it has been around for a few years, it has come on its own only in 2020 after most of the world has been told to stay indoors at home.

You can use it on your desktop or mobile and it works well with Mac too. You can go live and see who’s online and start pulling them into your house party. With bandwidth usage seeing a surge and certain to see a global upgrade during the lockdown, Houseparty’s future seems bright. It’s a hit with teenagers and also has a ghosting mode where you can come invisibly and literally crash the party.

It’s suited for the times, where it’s informal and people can come and go and the mood of the virtual party changes. If Zoom it going totally professional, then Houseparty could truly well emerge as the “personal” choice. While it used to record a lakh plus downloads a week, the moment the current crisis went global, in a week it registered 2 million downloads. As expected, you can also play games during the party, send mails and pass notes. After Prince Charles was tested positive for Covid-19, a report said that his wife Camilla was using Houseparty to lift her spirits.

Of course it’s not without its controversies. There are those who say it’s not good for privacy issues and another user claimed that he was hacked due to it, though that was unproven. Some ask what will happen after the Covid-19 lockdown ends, though history shows that sometimes once you are hooked to something, you stay with it even if the circumstances change. Also, after the Bird Flu, Swine Flu, SARS and MERS scares, it seems epidemic alerts are here to stay and such lockdown protocols may become routine in the future.

A lot of old ways will perish and new technologies-trends will emerge from the 2020 crisis and Houseparty appears to be among the early successes.