Reviews from across the tech world, and some predictions for how Facebook users will respond to it.
Airtime entered the relevant world this week, as introduced by a slew of famous people, including Snoop Dogg, who voiced his support for the latest product of Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, the Napster co-founders who cost him millions by turning the music industry on its head a little more than a decade ago. Apparently that’s water under the bridge.
Airtime seems to be one part Google+ Hangout, one part Skype, and a dash of Chatroulette, topped off with a whole bunch of Facebook user data. Oh, and also about $25 million.
Now, if you’re familiar with the two weeks that Chatroulette was popular, you’ll know that decency (read: nudity) is a pretty significant problem in this format. Airtime’s solution for that was a seemingly creepy method of taking random photos of its users to make sure everyone’s behaving themselves. Although how and who records and analyzes this content is unclear, it’s a practice that Airtime already warned its users about in its privacy policy:
By using our Service, you are consenting to have your image and conversations recorded by Airtime.
So far, reviews of such a strange new service have pretty much run the gamut. Network World’s Bob Brown tested it out on the first day of availability. His consensus?
It works fine, though I’m not sure I’ll get addicted to it.
CNET’s initially skeptical Rafe Needleman was “won over” after testing out Airtime, citing the delivery of such a played-out concept as the main reason he sees a future for the service.
At this early stage, despite limitations, Airtime is surprisingly compelling. And it’s not the concept that wins you over. People have tried variations on what Airtime is doing before. It’s the execution. It’s simple, fast, and it seems to do a good job of matching you to people who won’t waste your time.
At the Telegraph, though, Emma Barnett doesn’t see a reason anyone would use Airtime, and rejected the fundamental idea that people will turn to the web to surf for strangers to speak with over video chat. Because of these logical flaws, Barnett surmised “Airtime is a step backwards, not forwards.”
Parker and Fanning say that Airtime will help brings back the ‘Wild Wild West’ feeling of the early web – where anybody could meet anybody.
But I don’t know anyone who wants a return to the faceless chatrooms that we did away with in nineties and early noughties. Most people I speak to only want to talk to their friends, not strangers, both online and off. They don’t have a desire to waste time talking to strangers. It’s the equivalent of picking up the phone and calling a random phone number.
Personally, I won’t use it. The only people with whom I video chat are my nephews, who are scattered across the country and are all under the age of three, and that’s just so they recognize me the next time I see them in person. Other than that, I have no use for video chat.
However, I think it could catch on with Facebook, albeit briefly. Clearly, Parker and Fanning have the support of celebrities, whether its paid for it or not, and considering the success of some of these social games on Facebook, it’s safe to say a lot of people on the site will try anything (do people still “Poke”?). But don’t overestimate the Facebook user’s attention span. The only real difference between Airtime and Chatroulette is that it’s allegedly going to connect users with similar tastes. But just because someone else clicked ‘Like’ on the Facebook page for the Boston Celtics doesn’t mean that I’ll get along with him. Facebook may know some stuff about us, but not enough to play matchmaker.
The thrill of a new toy and the hardly less-random connection to strangers will get people using Airtime in its first few weeks, but once they’ve already used up all their funny ideas, and once something else comes around to capture their attention, Facebook will go back to being Facebook and Airtime wil go back to being Chatroulette-with-less-nudity.
