[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built the antithesis of Zoom. Add GIFs, s...
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Show HN: I built the antithesis of Zoom. Add GIFs, stickers, BGs.
Talk like IRL
Author : remotelyyours
Score : 206 points
Date : 2021-01-06 12:43 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reslash.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (reslash.co)
| dorianmariefr wrote:
| I love how the co-founder is doing tours in the online demo
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Thanks!
| TotempaaltJ wrote:
| Seems like this could work super well for personal use,
| especially if there was a mobile/tablet app with pinch-to-zoom.
|
| Could throw a party on this with my friends.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We've actually a lot of interest for virtual events, offices
| and classrooms :)
| johnnyg wrote:
| I joined and couldn't see my own face or bubble. I clicked around
| trying to figure that part out but didn't get it.
|
| I saw other people could easily publish content to the board and
| I think that part is a step forward. I could have clicked
| chess/gif and posted something but exited there.
|
| When I join, I'd like a clear "you are here" with my own face
| looking back at me.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Feedback taken! We'll improve upon this :)
| mwcampbell wrote:
| This reminds me of an old article by Jakob Nielsen, "Better than
| Reality" [1], about how the web shouldn't try to emulate reality.
| Of course, technology has advanced a lot since 1998. But I wonder
| if his core point is still right. For one thing, at its best, the
| web is still better than reality in that it can be much more
| accessible to people with disabilities. Products like this one
| still run the risk of negating that advantage.
|
| [1]: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/better-than-reality-a-
| funda...
| ravi-delia wrote:
| I wonder if there's a good way of getting the best of both
| worlds. The 'killer app' here would seem to be that you can
| migrate between conversations _and_ be aware of other people 's
| conversations at the same time, taking advantage of the efforts
| of evolution to the fullest. Is there a better way that's more
| inclusive?
| CivBase wrote:
| So it's basically Discord channels, but I change channels by
| moving around an avatar? That's neat, but I'm not sure it's
| really "the antithesis of Zoom". I don't even think Zoom is the
| right product to compare against. Why should I use this over
| Discord?
| rzodkiew wrote:
| I feel like I'm out of touch with current western culture, I
| honestly feel like I'm becoming an old fart at the age of 30.
|
| Everything is becoming increasingly infantile. Everything has to
| be fun and cool. I'm wondering where is this trend coming from.
| Is this some sort of a social response to how terrible and bleak
| reality seems to be? Or maybe it's because we actually treat
| majority of people like little children. If one looks how the
| current enterprises work, the person within them have very
| limited decision making power and access to information. In a way
| that reminds me of a quote from interview with Erich Fromm[1]:
| "It is true that one has to think first and then to act -but it's
| also true that if one has no possibility of acting, one's
| thinking kind of becomes empty and stupid.".
|
| Any other ideas? Or maybe it's actually not happening at all, and
| it's only me who's not getting it.
|
| [1]:
| https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll...
|
| PS: OP, I don't mean that as criticism of your product, I think
| it correctly identifies and addresses the need. It's the why is
| it even a need part I'm curious about.
| dangus wrote:
| Maybe you're right about some things becoming infantile, but a
| lot of the examples shown on this product page aren't just
| about messing around with GIFs. You can build visual virtual
| spaces, like a virtual conference space or auditorium. The idea
| of being able to virtually walk around a virtual physical space
| and speak to people in an analogy to real life (by getting
| "closer" to them) seems like it's an idea with at least some
| potential, and certainly a better idea than doing the real
| thing right now.
|
| Also, you may be surprised to find out that you _are_ allowed
| to have silly fun as an adult.
|
| In my opinion, the "infantilization" of our workplaces is a
| huge positive, it's really a side effect that's demonstrating
| that employers are caring less about forcing us to wear fake
| clothes, fake personalities, and fake formality during our day
| to day work. Comedy is one of the best coping mechanisms to
| deal with stress and in that way it helps to be able to slap a
| GIF over a situation without feeling like the boss man is going
| to tell me to tone it down.
|
| And sure, maybe there's no need for this product, but what I
| can say is that if you build another Zoom/Meet/WebEx you aren't
| really making anything new or interesting.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Having an office clown is a great tension breaker.
|
| Having an office full of clowns is a great way to get nothing
| done.
| dangus wrote:
| If you take my argument to its most extreme conclusion,
| sure, but I don't know why you're doing that.
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| A combination of things you mentioned and more:
|
| * US has been suffering from its postwar boom period hangover
| for over 40 years now. The job market isn't like it was due to
| other emerging economies now having their boom periods. All
| those dreams and aspirations that millennials were promised
| (You can be whatever you want! Follow your passion and the work
| will follow) were shattered and turned out to be contemptible
| lies perpetuated by the secondary education system and the job
| market as a whole. As a result, a whole generation is saddled
| with debt, and are delaying milestones of life progression
| (buying a house, having kids), indefinitely for many.
|
| * The rise of the Internet and the millennials being at its
| forefront has opened up massive new markets in the
| entertainment section, most notably Disney. They own most
| entertainment IPs, and know that millennials want to relive
| their childhoods so they sell it back to them. Comic book
| movies aren't just a fad like 80s actions movies were; they're
| here to stay. And Disney wants adults to keep being obsessed
| with what are essentially children's movies. All the social
| media companies want you on their product all the time using it
| and sharing everything you can (especially the juicy
| controversial stuff that is polarizing the country, oh boy do
| they love those articles).
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I'm 31 and think it's a cute/fun idea that I'll probably never
| want myself, but nobody is forcing me to use it.
|
| It's okay to let people build, deliver, and market things that
| you don't need/want. People are allowed to like things that you
| yourself do not like.
|
| Reading the other replies to this comment I feel I am about to
| be downvoted to hell lol
| zwlee94 wrote:
| "infantile".. you nailed it:
| http://jollo.org/LNT/public/nursery.html
| balia wrote:
| Same. What I want out of every communication product is the
| same: reliable, boring, and get out of my way. Humans innately
| know how to communicate with each other. They know how to make
| jokes, get info across, make hints, etc. we don't need
| technology for the content of the communication
|
| We need the transportation. Make it reliable, fast, and non
| interfering. That's it. That's why Zoom rocks. It just works
| TheCycoONE wrote:
| I don't know about that - I'm a little older than you, and I
| remember when the web was more like this. GeoCities and MySpace
| allowed tons of customization, and everybody made their own
| barf on a page to express themselves.
|
| Then sometime in the mid 2000s everything online became
| sanitized and corporate.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Don't forget BBSes and even AOL/Prodigy, Everything used to
| be more tongue in cheek, and required a bit of discovery to
| figure out.
|
| Personally, I think it's been downhill since someone decided
| we needed ui/ux designers instead of sleep deprived
| developers who assumed it was always the (l)users fault for
| not being able to figure out how to use things. Sure, it has
| made things easier to use for the masses, but I don't care
| about the masses.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > I don't care about the masses.
|
| The "masses" are real people too, with feelings. We should
| care about them. Also, they include our family and,
| hopefully, friends.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I think the internet was much better when most of my
| family and friends didn't know how to use it.
|
| But yeah, I know it's basically a necessity now, and I
| understand that services need to cater to as many people
| as possible. I just wanted to be a cranky old nerd for a
| bit :-)
| schnevets wrote:
| I'd describe the mid 2000s aesthetic as "Professional", while
| current trends are "Genuine". Snaps, stories, livestreams,
| and other volatile social media became chic because it would
| go away - you didn't have to rehearse your words, worry about
| lighting, or ensure your images are perfectly aligned.
|
| I really dug this Reslash concept after seeing that grainy
| image of a classroom used as a background. It's something you
| just slap on because you're about to teach, but it isn't a
| painfully constructed "Knowledge Session" with a stock image-
| riddled Powerpoint deck.
| lhorie wrote:
| The web has always been a mish-mash of crazy hippie stuff
| alongside dry boring stuff. There was a lot of personalized
| personal webpages sure, but also search engines used to look
| dry and boring and emojis in chat were limited to what you
| could do with ASCII art (compared to the insane amount of
| animated sticker spammy-ness that a teen might use these
| days).
|
| With that said, I do agree with GP with regards to things
| outside of the web: products have a lot more franchise
| placements (e.g. disney-themed shampoos), and school for my
| kids have a lot more of an artsy/hippie feel than I remember
| my dry seats-facing-forward education some 30 years ago.
| Gaming among adults is far more socially accepted than 30
| years ago - you wouldn't even bat an eyelid at an old lady
| playing candy crush in the bus these days. Etc.
|
| I suspect an increase in middle class disposable income might
| have something to do with this. Look, for example, at how
| culture progressed over the decades in Japan. Nowadays, you
| have grown adults who are into moe[0] stuff, along all sort
| of "infantile" subcultures (by western standards).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_(slang)
| rzodkiew wrote:
| I think there's a line somewhere between expressiveness and
| infantility. It's actually corporate that pushes the latter
| through the way they add those ways of expression to their
| products.
|
| I'm not saying everything has to be boring and same
| everywhere, I'd like to see the world that's actually quite
| the opposite, that's diverse and where people are pushing the
| boundaries of expression. Where I see infantilisation
| happening is where things with very low information ratio
| (and usually something evoking one of the basic emotions with
| high valence and high arousal) are described as fun and cool.
|
| I think OP's product is sitting somewhere on that border, but
| their marketing angle is definitely pushing it towards the
| infantility. Just look at the title of this very post, but I
| guess it worked, in the end we've all clicked on the comments
| and are here.. :)
| rorykoehler wrote:
| It's not particularly western. East Asian countries have been
| doing it for decades.
| inscionent wrote:
| Has your job become gamified yet?
| rzodkiew wrote:
| Thankfully not yet. But as you are correctly pointing out
| this is another trend I find personally worrisome.
|
| Recently I've seen startup, where you were earning XP points
| for quickly closing customer support tickets, and earning
| badges...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Recently I 've seen startup, where you were earning XP
| points for quickly closing customer support tickets, and
| earning badges..._
|
| A college buddy worked at a place like that. But it wasn't
| a startup, it was a long-established company.
|
| It was also 1996, and he learned that closing deals on
| copies of Windows 95 was worth twice as many points as
| other software, so he focused all his efforts on that so he
| could do half the work of his "teammates" in his cubicle
| farm.
| postingpals wrote:
| This is Capitalism. Everything has to be family friendly so it
| can reach as wide an audience as possible. When you're waiting
| for customer support, you have to hear a fun jingle so you
| don't get upset. People have to be talked down to like children
| so they know their place in the wealth hierarchy. It's an
| ideology, not in the sense of political beliefs, but rather
| false ideas that dominate society that we all subconsciously
| hold to maintain the social system we built on contradictory
| premises.
|
| I don't think I've presented the full picture, but you asked
| where this trend is coming from, and to me this is the only
| common factor and starting point of investigation.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > This is Capitalism. Everything has to be family friendly so
| it can reach as wide an audience as possible
|
| Ah yes, those socialists and their totally not family
| friendly media? Really?
|
| > When you're waiting for customer support, you have to hear
| a fun jingle so you don't get upset.
|
| It's so you know you haven't been disconnected.
|
| > People have to be talked down to like children so they know
| their place in the wealth hierarchy.
|
| Please don't talk down to people regardless of how wealthy
| you are. You will always have the best luck by being warm but
| polite, talking respectfully but honestly.
|
| > It's an ideology, not in the sense of political beliefs,
| but rather false ideas that ...
|
| Capitalism appears to be pretty real, and it appears to be
| pretty political. I would not say it "dominates" society
| since plenty of people seem to be against it in name alone.
| postingpals wrote:
| From your website:
|
| "Admit Nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-Accusations"
|
| Why am I not surprised to see this kind of instinctive
| reaction. I don't want to debate your points because that
| is way out of scope for this thread and I don't want to be
| chased out.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Be careful. That smells like a personal attack.
|
| Moreover, if you can't debate what he wrote in HN, you
| shouldn't explore his life outside of HN to try to build
| a strawman.
| Jommi wrote:
| I think you're approaching it from the completely wrong way. We
| are in the time of revolution for video calls and interactive
| spaces. In times of revolution quick adoption is key.
| Funny/viral things with no participation barrier are ways of
| increasing adoption.
|
| It will allow the tech/product to evolve and soon also fit your
| usecase. Because most likely thats where the real money is.
|
| Just check this out:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_(computer_program)
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Preach!!
| Reedx wrote:
| You might find The Coddling of the American Mind[1] an
| interesting read. I think it explains a lot about the
| infantilization of the culture.
|
| 1. https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-
| Gen...
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I feel that sentiment myself. The need for better online
| communication is a forced reality during COVID. Having to
| navigate such explicit communication setups like Zoom groups
| and break-out rooms is a challenge.
|
| But I don't know why the marketing needs to be so "fun". I
| hated all the "fun" slack brought to my life... and slowed down
| good communication dramatically.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Yes I think you're onto something. Fewer and fewer people are
| required to make the world go. You have to keep them
| busy/distracted.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Play is the natural state of life. It's a better question to
| ask why everything else is so staid and un-fun.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25481758
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Because we have to work to survive in the current system. If
| I didn't have to work and could take risks (I.e. have fu
| money) I'd do roughly the same thing in a very different way.
| ironmagma wrote:
| What does that have to do with whether a video conferencing
| app is experimental though? All that says is that whoever
| made it has some leeway to take risks.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| I am actually 32 haha I do understand where you're coming from.
| However, our motivation around this was to have an emotional
| response to space. The idea of personalizing your space where
| you're spending time is an important one. We also want to be
| treated like people online and not boxes. So the whole idea of
| being on "mute" when you're listening to someone needs to be
| challenged.
|
| This is probably not an answer to what you've asked. I just
| wanted to tell you about how motivations behind building this.
| rzodkiew wrote:
| Oh yeah, I think what you've built can be great enabler for
| expression and creativity and product itself and definitely
| has the old school web feel to it. I think what inspired me
| to write above, was more of a marketing angle you are taking,
| not necessarily product itself.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| You got the creativity and expression bit right. That's a
| big motivator. For the positioning, I do understand your
| point. We may need to explore this a bit more to really
| convey what we're trying to do better.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| An experiment well worth doing, and probably a preferable
| option for people weary of listening politely to
| 'authorities' or 'guests' or 'lecturers' one-at-a-time...
| which can be extremely low-bandwidth.
|
| Certainly at conventions with 'presentations' many people sit
| near each other to discuss what's being said (or talk past
| the parts not relevant to them) in real-time. Orchestras
| still have conductors (strictly interpreting fixed works) but
| I think most people would rather be in a band (for the
| creative interactivity) and rather listen to a band.
| dunce2020 wrote:
| > Is this some sort of a social response to how terrible and
| bleak reality seems to be?
|
| Yep, a distraction to increasing alienation and atomization
| under Kapital.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| A related development I find interesting is the increasing
| denial of accountability. More and more, people focus on the
| ways that things aren't their fault or focus on things that
| they can't change. It's to a point where IMO people are
| basically treating themselves and each other as children, with
| the tired old mantras that children often use: it's not my
| fault, they started it, everyone else is doing it too, etc. It
| doesn't matter too much to me. I've always focused on the ways
| I can improve myself and my life without worrying too much
| about how things could have been better if XYZ. But I do think
| the people who participate in this aspect of infantilization
| culture may be holding themselves without even realizing it.
| notabee wrote:
| I think the other side of the coin is that we're moving away
| from people hiding incompetence through bravado,
| scapegoating, and what gets neglected when people engage in
| the game of pretend called "we're all grown ups here". The
| fact is that people are on a lot of different levels of
| emotional maturity and function. Even the same individual at
| difference points of their life and in different contexts.
| Age only loosely correlates with real maturity, real
| ownership of responsibility, etc. It's kind of silly when we
| can plan for all sorts of failsafes and redundancy in
| architecture and software but neglect to do so with humans,
| who are always error prone.
|
| Also, it is useful to talk about systemic problems that are
| much larger than what any individual can fix just by being
| extra diligent.
|
| I see your point though, that something being nobody's fault
| can be just as damaging as spending an egregious amount of
| time trying to assign blame (the traditional way of things).
| My opinion is that responsibility, and being able to take
| some flak for when that ownership goes awry, should be
| conditioned like exercise. Taking none is like never
| exercising, and it's very unhealthy. Throwing 1000 pounds of
| weight on someone suddenly because of a pathological need for
| the group to have a scapegoat doesn't make that person
| better, though. It just crushes them and it's a net loss for
| the group. That weight and stress should be shared. We need
| to cultivate the real maturity to take and give some blame
| constructively, and recognize all extenuating factors, so
| that people neither get infantilized and helpless nor simply
| squashed because of a systemic problem that the group just
| doesn't want to address.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Accountability and blame are two vastly different concepts.
| As an executive I'm accountable when my team messes up.
| Blame doesn't even come into it.
| patcon wrote:
| Thanks for your comment! fwiw, pls note that your critique
| would apply equally to any concern that society wishes to
| "push up the stack". Collectivizing challenges (rather than
| individualizing them) is what pretty much all societal
| progress is built on...
|
| But that process will always look like people saying "this
| isn't my fault" and focussing on "something they can't change
| [by themselves]".
|
| Anyhow, not saying your intuition are wrong (there are
| degrees I agree with), but just noting it has some fuzzy
| edges that point toward some weird truisms
| silicon2401 wrote:
| We probably just have different viewpoints, and the "fuzzy
| edges" may be areas we don't agree. I am very aware of what
| my views are, whereas you imply I may be unaware. I find it
| useful to not waste too much time worrying about challenges
| and instead focus on solutions and opportunity. This has
| allowed me to come from childhood poverty into an adulthood
| that successfully provides me the life I want, without
| hangups or emotional baggage. If other people find success
| through different strategies, that's great. But as I said,
| I can't help but think that many people are only holding
| themselves back by focusing on things that are out of their
| control
| xienze wrote:
| > A related development I find interesting is the increasing
| denial of accountability. More and more, people focus on the
| ways that things aren't their fault or focus on things that
| they can't change.
|
| This is 100% on what's being taught in schools and colleges
| (critical race theory).
| jetpks wrote:
| Can you provide peer reviewed sources for your claim that
| critical race theory leads to lack of accountability?
| xienze wrote:
| Yes, the whole premise is "all your failures in life are
| because of racism and other privilege."
| viewer5 wrote:
| That wasn't peer-reviewed or even sourced
| ryandrake wrote:
| Unpopular opinion on HN, but asking for a peer-reviewed
| source during a casual forum discussion is kind of a lazy
| way to dismiss something. When you're chatting with your
| buddies over cocktails and they say something you
| disagree with, do you suddenly demand a peer-reviewed
| source and offer to drive them to the library so they can
| find the academic papers that back up their views?
| ldrndll wrote:
| Let's not let facts get in the way of some good old-
| fashioned racism shall we?
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| I don't know if there's peer-reviewed sources about that
| claim in particular, but this is a topic that's being
| addressed often in media. Here's a popular book on this
| topic; I haven't read it yet, but I'd like to:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1634312023
| meowkit wrote:
| CT/CRT promotes an external locus of control as the
| source of societal problems. In other words, its not the
| fault of the individual/human hardware its the fault of
| the patterns that society has entrenched aka systemic
| racism or the software of a culture.
|
| Its a top down theory/solution to what critics would
| argue is a bottom up problem. Individuals must be
| responsible for what they say, how they regulate their
| emotional state, and how their experiences and cognitive
| distortions skew their thinking. CT/CRT, by my
| understanding, argues against this. Thus it seems
| reasonable to say it leads to a lack of accountability if
| you define accountability as a responsibility for ones
| actions and beliefs.
|
| I've read a small bit on CT/CRT, intersectionality, and
| the modern culture of safetyism. Primarily from Haidt who
| has more peer reviewed sources on things than anyone
| could ever want.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-
| Gen...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-
| Relig...
|
| I find CT/CRT to be compelling to a degree, but it brings
| along with it too much baggage in my opinion. You're
| likely not going to find or be given a specific source of
| data that says CRT leads to lack of accountability
| (however you would measure that), its an assumption made
| by the previous poster. You don't need one either to have
| a discussion, so don't fall back on the lack of academic
| evidence as an argument in itself.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Seems like the logical endpoint of the shift away from tie and
| button down formality to the more casual/fun (at least on the
| surface) vibe tech businesses introduced. I don't really go for
| all the unicorn/muffin/whatever type childish aspects, but
| friendly UI's are a welcome change from the sort of austere
| 'businessy' UIs.
|
| This also doesn't just apply to work, many people my age (32)
| are super into cartoons and Disneyland, but the concept of
| going to Disneyland without a child in your 30s seems... weird
| to me. It is probably good that people feel comfortable to be
| sort of weird though versus the stoic version of adulthood in
| the past.
| cam0 wrote:
| I'm slightly older than you, so we're both millenials, and I've
| noticed a lot of my friends sort of struggling with the fact
| that we're no longer the "young and cool" crowd. The Gen Y/Z
| TikTok crowd are the cool ones now, and speaking anecdotally
| the people I know in their late teens and early twenties are
| quite a bit more sheltered and childish than my friends and I
| were at that age. We were using fake IDs to get into bars and
| shows, and my younger cousins are literally spending
| Friday/Saturday nights inside on social media (pre-Covid).
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Respectfully, I think the younger generations are "up to" the
| exact same stuff. I should write a post about college campus
| ID culture. It's always fun to break out a pseudonym.
| treve wrote:
| My understanding is that going out, (binge-)drinking has
| actually significantly gone down in the last decade.
|
| I can't vouch for these specific stats, but I've come
| across multiple articles over the years that support this.
| Here's at least some data I found:
|
| https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/binge-drinking
|
| Anecdotally, tons of clubs have closed in since the 90's
| with no replacement where I lived (Toronto and North
| Netherlands). Everything at least in my circles suggests
| that drugs, drinking, partying is all happening less now
| compared to the previous generations.
|
| Ymmv depending on where you are from though.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I randomly landed and browsed through Courtney Loves
| Twitter today and she posts lots of pictures of partying
| in the early 90s with other celebs. It's the antithesis
| of what is cool today. Just looks like a train wreck
| really.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Er, Courtney Love was widely perceived as a trainwreck in
| the 90s, so her Twitter being full of now-seen-as-
| trainwreck stuff from the 1990s probably isn't a good
| measure of change from the 1990s to now.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| But her scene and the train wrecking was seen as "cool"
| by kids. I don't think that is the case anymore. Kids
| look up to Elon Musk and YouTubers want to do startups
| and content instead.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But her scene and the train wrecking was seen as "cool"
| by kids
|
| Not very broadly, even among "the kids" (who, then and
| now, are far from monolithic.) She was more seen as a
| trainwreck that was in cool circles, not as a cool
| trainwreck.
|
| > Kids look up to Elon Musk
|
| Yeah, kids looked up to successful business and tech
| figures in the 1990s, and there are trainwreck
| entertainment industry celebs today, too.
|
| It's not the case that Musk is idolized by a similar
| segment of the youth as would have idolized Love in the
| 1990s.
| dangus wrote:
| Regarding the sheltering: I dunno. The next generation
| _probably isn't telling you the shit they're getting into_.
|
| Besides that, I spent plenty of Friday evenings staying up
| until 4 AM playing The Sims (the original game). It's not
| like high school kids really have a choice on what they're
| doing a lot of times - they don't have complete freedom of
| movement.
| grawprog wrote:
| >I'm slightly older than you, so we're both millenials, and
| I've noticed a lot of my friends sort of struggling with the
| fact that we're no longer the "young and cool" crowd. The Gen
| Y/Z TikTok crowd are the cool ones now
|
| The funny thing about that, much like when we were that age,
| those platforms and things the young folks think are cool
| were made by people who are the age of millenials or older
| for the most part.
|
| I dunno, when I was younger a lot of the music and stuff I
| thought was cool was being made by people who were around the
| same age I am now.
|
| Not too sure what my point is really, your comment just made
| me think of this. People around that age start lamenting
| their lack of cool, but are responsible for many of the
| things people younger than them find cool...something like
| that I suppose.
| rzodkiew wrote:
| > Now the sound of music comes in silver pills >
| Engineered to suit you, building cheaper thrills >
| The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage > But
| it's made by millionaires who are nearly twice your age
|
| from The Sound Of Muzak by Porcupine Tree.
| smoyer wrote:
| I'm on the older end of those here on HN ... there's a
| specifically for our kind: https://gog.show/
| npsimons wrote:
| > Or maybe it's because we actually treat majority of people
| like little children.
|
| At 42, I've felt this is the cause for quite some time. You see
| it in things like the adult Disney woman[0]. Part of it is
| playing it safe so as not to offend the conservatives with a
| nipple, but market forces have been driving movies this
| direction as well[1].
|
| Gutting education to dumb down the populace hasn't helped.
|
| [0] - https://youtu.be/vLIfkiF8NeQ
|
| [1] - https://www.gq.com/story/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-
| harris
| highspeedbus wrote:
| It absolutely have to do with culture. "Manliness" is out of
| fashion (in the context of media communication). The current
| decade is all about being ironic, sassy and at the same time
| vacuous. Think of pop music at its peak.
|
| At the core of the problem, We've probably lost a lot of good
| UI designers in position of decision from last generation. This
| reflects on what is considered the "correct" way to make
| software UI nowadays. Note that blink unicorns are not
| necessary for a interface to be childish. Oversized buttons,
| lack of power features and the constant need to "reinvent" is a
| frenzy that gets some folks mad too.
|
| Particularly about the tool, I think this has some cool
| features that gets wanned by the backgrounds choice on the
| video pitch.
| matsemann wrote:
| Or just because going to work is more fun when it's.. fun? I
| spend 8 hours a day there, I want to show who I am and I prefer
| my coworkers doing the same.
|
| Especially the last 9 months. Normally one would talk with
| coworkers in the office, over a coffee, before a meeting etc.
| Remote meetings I find are strictly business.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| It's so dystopian. There is such a narrow window of what is
| acceptable behaviour in the workplace. I get along with and
| like my colleagues but my relationship with them will never
| be as genuine as it can be once I don't work with them
| anymore. There is no upside and tons of downside to being
| yourself. It's just not worth it.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| In terms of how to spend time percolating between hard work:
|
| In the office, I can find something to do at my desk alone or
| I can chat up some coworkers over coffee and the like.
|
| Remote, the options are endless and I can chat up my family
| and friends. I can do chores like dishes or laundry so
| they're not all waiting for me after work. I can go for a
| walk without being that guy who takes too many walks. Truly
| anything so long as the time allocation and availability to
| plug back in are appropriate.
|
| For me, this is why I prefer remote meetings be strictly
| business, and changing that isn't particularly compelling. My
| coworkers are cool, but prioritizing them over the rest of my
| life makes no sense to me so long as the value I bring to the
| company remains just as strong.
| rzodkiew wrote:
| I totally agree with you on the fun part, but I think what we
| define as fun is pretty different. I also agree with you that
| talking and knowing people you work with is important.
|
| Where we disagree is the point that I don't think that gifs
| are helping you to know who your coworkers are. And more
| importantly I think it is not helping anyone to better
| understand themselves, which is one of the values of having
| conversations with people in the first place - that's kinda
| what philosophy schools were for. Gifs seem to serve some
| sort of emotional regulation function, but I've never
| investigated more deeply into that.
|
| Now, I'm not trying to make a point here that you should only
| have serious conversations all the time, and definitely see
| the humour value of well timed gif, but I've found out that
| in general the trend is to shallow out the discussions and
| keep them within very narrow window of discourse.
| postingpals wrote:
| Why do you have to make work fun, shouldn't you already be
| enjoying it if you are doing what you want to do? Are you not
| doing what you want to do? See, that's the kind of problem
| that creates the infantilisation.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| It's not fun when you have to do it.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| Is it reasonable to expect that everyone in every WFH-
| friendly job is actually "doing what they want to do" all
| the time? In my opinion, no way. Even for someone doing
| their dream job, parts of their day-to-day are guaranteed
| to be eaten up by objectively not-fun tasks.
|
| Also, the fact that someone enjoys their job doesn't mean
| the experience can't be improved.
| [deleted]
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Since when was "having fun", "enjoying things", and "being
| creative" infantile?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I think OP doesn't find it to be any of the adjectives you
| describe.
| netsharc wrote:
| There's a term for the current 20-somethings who can't be seen
| as responsible adults yet, I don't remember what it was, but
| searching for it got me this long article, from 10 years ago!
| https://www.salon.com/2010/12/23/not_quite_adults_interview/
|
| Maybe it's the still-living-at-your-parents-at-25 economy...
| Maybe it's also because the 20, 30-somethings have been raised
| by more and more helicopter parents and schools giving out
| participation medals, i.e. too coddled.
| gjvc wrote:
| I've heard the term "peter-pan generation" be applied to this
| characteristic.
| emteycz wrote:
| I am 23, have same feelings. It's not the age.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Same age as well. And that's after strongly correcting for
| the stereotypical "they don't make music like they used to"
| bias that one might accuse me of.
|
| Professionalism is seen as patronizing - which is a vibe I
| can mostly get behind, but massively hinders direct,
| important communication or collaboration. I also see a lot of
| dishonest but well-intentioned platitudes being thrown around
| that hides actual feedback.
|
| But I'm ranting! Literally sounding like an old person...
| should I feel guilty about age-ism??? That's my young person
| perspective.
|
| It's good to not feel totally alone in these things. The kids
| behind us are wild, in my opinion.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| > The kids behind us are wild, in my opinion.
|
| What do you mean by this? The next generation which will
| follow yours?
| neetfreek wrote:
| I don't have any particularly interesting ideas about this, but
| here's a relevant and fun read; an interview with Simon Pegg:
|
| https://kingalfredpress.com/2017/09/20/the-infantalism-of-cu...
| danudey wrote:
| This article should be taken with a cosmic-scale grain of
| salt. Specifically, it's worth noting that the article
| discussions how complaints about "microaggressions"
| (typically from visible minorities) are a form of
| "oppression" and refers to "pathetic little snowflakes".
|
| This comes across as some kind of conservative boomer
| complaining about "kids these days", with their avocado
| toast, who aren't willing to work as hard as their
| grandfathers were in a world that's vastly different from the
| one they grew up in.
|
| The crux of the article with regards to Simon Pegg seems to
| be that movies have moved to "spectacle", but when did that
| happen? And who is going to see those movies? And why?
|
| The world is going to shit; the 1% own most of the world,
| climate change is destroying our planet, and politicians are
| more concerned with their own success than the lives of their
| constituents. Is it any wonder that people these days need
| more escapism than their grandparents in the "golden age of
| America", where employees would work hard their whole lives
| and companies would take care of their employees, where you
| could work a typical job and still be able to afford a house
| and a comfortable lifestyle, and where you didn't have to
| feel bad about hurting someone's feelings by being overtly
| racist all the time, because you never ran into black people
| because they weren't allowed to use the same water fountains
| or bathrooms as you.
|
| This article, in short, is garbage, and should be treated as
| such.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I'm older than you and I think it's fun. I also question that
| this is a new thing. Look at the web in the 90s for example.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| There was New Hive. That's one of our inspirations. I am not
| sure how many people have used that..
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I wouldn't use it for work, and for that reason I like the idea
| of something being the opposite of work... where it doesn't
| have to be "professional" looking.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| You can make it "look" professional if you want.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| A lot of these products are failing to innovate in meaningful
| directions. Instead, they add silly features to justify your
| continued use of them and their development team salaries.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| I would disagree. How is solving for better communication not
| meaningful?
| reaperducer wrote:
| Define "better" in this context.
| filoleg wrote:
| not the same person, but I think "better" in this context
| means "something that more people would prefer over the
| alternative due to having self-reported higher levels of
| enjoyment and lower levels of stress, which makes you
| want to use the tool more".
| victorevector wrote:
| Infantile is a compliment. It suggests creativity and pushing
| the boundaries. Normally old curmudgeons think young things are
| empty and stupid because they don't understand.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Infantile means you don't have a developed prefrontal cortex
| and is definitely not a positive description. Creative and
| playful are not the same concept.
| M277 wrote:
| Ten years younger here and I feel the exact same.
|
| It doesn't even stop with everything being "fun and cool" --
| take a look at how dumb social media interaction really is. An
| infinite stream of stuff that the user just presses "like" or
| "love" or whatever at, and immediately scrolls / swaps to the
| next diversion.
| ianceicys wrote:
| Very cool to see this. Just tried it out. It's a great
| visualization.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Thanks!
| jtbayly wrote:
| That was cool, except I could never hear anybody talking. :(
|
| I could hear the videos, though.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Oh, weird. Let me DM you and get that fixed for you.
| dkersten wrote:
| Its cool, I especially like that presentation example. However,
| animated GIFs and stickers would drive me insane. I already can't
| stand animated stuff in slack as it is, so distracting.
| scythmic_waves wrote:
| I also find that stuff distracting in slack, but I think that's
| because I'm trying to stay on top of "work stuff". I don't
| think it'd be so distracting if I was just hanging with friends
| or something.
| dkersten wrote:
| I get that, but it still distracts from the actual
| conversations or people. I don't need stuff constantly
| moving. I guess the difference is that if its an in-person
| situation, then stuff moving around me is normal, but on
| screen it localizes everything to a small area: the screen. I
| also find animated stuff annoying in Discord channels and
| such, something I don't use for work, only for fun.
|
| I dunno. I haven't tried it. For me, when I'm in a social
| situation (virtual or in person), I'm there for the people
| and want to focus on them, not some animated emoji. I can do
| those on my own.
| tpxl wrote:
| FWIW you can disable animated emojis
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Consider automatically bootstrapping user profiles for the live
| demo. Putting in E-Mail to see what it is all about is a straight
| up no for me. Too much friction.
| [deleted]
| remotelyyours wrote:
| I built a video calling app which is the antithesis of Zoom. It's
| called Reslash.
|
| You can play with everything - backgrounds, gifs, stickers. You
| can recreate a bar lounge, classroom, office, 80s party and more.
|
| It also has spatial audio - just move closer to talk to people,
| like you do IRL.
|
| Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwXL7ZJra4
|
| You can sign up here: https://reslash.co
|
| I would love to get your feedback on it :)
| sli wrote:
| That video answers every question I had about why someone might
| choose Reslash over Discord, thanks. Reslash looks fun.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Thanks!
| FalconSensei wrote:
| Regarding pricing: I would see myself using that to play D&D
| once a week with my friends. So, less than 10 people, but 1
| 4-hour session a week.
|
| Unfortunately, free tier is not enough, but $99 for that is a
| bit too much.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Hey! We have gotten a lot of feedback on pricing. We need to
| fix it. Please go ahead and start using it! We'll have an in-
| between pricing soon :)
| FalconSensei wrote:
| thanks for the reply! I'll give it a try with my friends :)
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Two points regarding the pricing table: Firstly it mixes
| different spellings("up to" and "upto"). And then there are the
| bullet points with strikethrough text that I just can't
| understand. Why do both variants have "unlimited spaces"
| crossed out? Why is "no unlimited guests allowed" crossed out,
| which in my head implies that unlimited guests are allowed.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Good observation. Pricing needs to be calibrated and
| communicated properly. On it!!
| juliend2 wrote:
| Feedback:
|
| I just had a quick tour with you guys. Amazing tool.
|
| But at first I signed in as a guest, but now I want to sign up
| with the same email address but it says "Error occured: The
| email address is already in use by another account.".
|
| And I see no "Forgot password" link.
|
| EDIT: user email is now in my bio.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| fixing it!
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Hey, this is fixed. Can you try signing up again please?
| Let me know if it still doesn't work.
| djlewald wrote:
| I'm surprised you didn't launch on producthunt. Definitely
| think that crowd would get a kick out of it
|
| Edit: I now see their producthunt page. It didn't pop up while
| searching /shrug
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| They were the #1 product of the day on Product Hunt on
| December 23rd. They even have a Product Hunt '#1 product of
| the day' badge featured prominently on their landing page.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We actually were #1 on Product Hunt. We launched on it couple
| of weeks ago :)
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I like the idea of spatial audio, I think that is the main
| thing missing from virtual happy hours and whatnot.
|
| I cant try it out right now. Does it have a limit to how many
| people can occupy a space? can you control how far your voice
| projects?
|
| I am thinking of something like a work christmas party where
| everyone breaks into groups and then walks away and tries
| another group for a bit and talks to different people. Then
| someone gets everyones attention and talks loudly or into a
| microphone for a bit, then it goes back to normal.
|
| In any case, good luck, it sounds great, I cant wait to try it.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| You can have up to 100 people in a room. You have unlimited
| rooms. We're also building a broadcast feature so that you
| can talk/announce across rooms.
|
| We've not given flexibility on the spatial audio radius yet.
| It could be interesting!
| ironmagma wrote:
| Love it. It would be especially cool to be able to create
| filters, e.g. chroma keying on your video to integrate it into
| the space. Or just to make the colors go wonky and have fun
| with the image.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Wow. Cool idea. We definitely need to look into this!
| avrionov wrote:
| I really like that you are working on something original and
| different. Wish you luck.
|
| What is the tech stack behind the product? Do you use WebRTC?
| Something home-build.
| neurotrace wrote:
| I think this is a fantastic idea and will be trying it out with
| some friends later!
|
| The only issue for me is the pricing. The free tier is great
| for getting your feet wet but the $99 is too expensive for me
| to consider since I would only be hanging out with a few
| friends. For me, the ideal would be something in the $15-$30
| range and would increase the call limit to 3-4 hours. I don't
| need unlimited meetings or more than 10 people. Best of luck!
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We'll definitely be bringing such a plan. Until then, please
| go ahead and use it as much as you want :) Feedback taken!
| gjvc wrote:
| This is very good. :-) The zooming user interface is a nice
| touch. It would work well for meetups where you can see lots of
| people and move from group to group by dragging the mouse.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Thank you! How do you think you can potentially use this?
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense!
| lrossi wrote:
| Very nice! Has a chess game too! If you could add some lighter
| board games or 2d pool I might spend some time on it!
|
| What can you tell us about security and privacy? Can you create
| locked rooms? Zoom had a lot of problems with this in the
| beginning.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We'll be adding a lot more games to it. The calls are all end-
| to-end encrypted. We'll be adding more security features like
| passwords, locked rooms and gatekeeping to get this aspect
| right.
| woah wrote:
| I was interested in building something like this when COVID-19
| first hit. I think it's still a space with a lot of potential,
| but there are now a huge number of competitors. I made a
| spreadsheet and add to it each time I see one of these products
| come up on HN:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R5DXWtz4H7eIT5VbGYJE...
|
| There are currently at least 18 projects operating in this space.
|
| - The majority (maybe all?) of them are browser-based (probably
| because it's easy to throw something together with all the JS
| webrtc example projects out there).
|
| - Most of them seem to be trying to sell to enterprises or
| conference organizers.
|
| - I suspect that most of them are ghost towns.
|
| - None of them that I've seen actually try to originate events-
| i.e. the only way you would use them is if you try to organize an
| event or are invited to one through a different channel.
|
| - Most of them are top-down, although there are a few 3d ones.
|
| I still think that there's a lot of potential for someone to come
| in and take over this whole space with a product more polished
| than is possible in the browser, and with a social element that
| can drive usage of the platform (similar to Clubhouse). I suspect
| that the winning team will come from the ranks of game
| developers, not webdevs who cracked open a webrtc tutorial one
| weekend. For now though, it's probably best to sit back and let
| the majority of the 18 existing teams burn through their funding.
| hakcermani wrote:
| A few more for your list .. https://gather.town,
| https://party.mookerj.ee, https://www.wonder.me,
| http://workadventu.re, https://theonline.town/
| remotelyyours wrote:
| There are competitors but our focus is on making sure people
| are able to build highly personalized spaces. The experience
| is vastly different than others.
| lksslr wrote:
| i'm always sad when we are missing on such a list, eventhough I
| guess we tick most of the boxes you mention...
|
| - parties/social events as focus
|
| - 3d, but not trying to cater for corporate markets
|
| - not a town at all
|
| as you obviously spent some time thinking about this topic I'd
| really appreciate some feedback: https://laptopsinspace.de
| rl3 wrote:
| > _as you obviously spent some time thinking about this topic
| I 'd really appreciate some feedback:
| https://laptopsinspace.de_
|
| While I'm not OP, I remember seeing this project at the end
| of April in Three.js Discord. It's neat to see where it's
| gone since. Bravo. :)
| kodablah wrote:
| > I suspect that the winning team will come from the ranks of
| game developers, not webdevs who cracked open a webrtc tutorial
| one weekend.
|
| I hope it will be two teams. The first will be the devs who
| build a free SDK to make building such things really easy.
| Think mediasoup but w/ all the rooms, permissions, servers,
| state management, etc easy to build with via API. The second
| team will garner adoption by putting in the effort into putting
| those pieces together and running/moderating the thing.
| grahamburger wrote:
| Thanks for posting this list! As it happens I am working on
| organizing a conference in the coming months and I've been
| comparing a few similar platforms but there are several on your
| list and in the comments that I didn't know about.
|
| If anyone has attended a conference recently using one of these
| platforms I'd love to hear how it went.
| [deleted]
| tcoff91 wrote:
| Mozilla Hubs is the best 3d browser-based spatial audio
| platform I've tried yet by far. I hosted a virtual party in the
| first lockdown back in April and it was pretty fun and far far
| better than a zoom call due to the spacial audio. Unfortunately
| it did become a bit unstable past 15-18 people and you'd have
| to rejoin the session frequently when it started to crap out
| under higher load.
|
| There already is a popular platform that fits what you are
| describing: VRChat.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We support up to 100 people in a room.
| rl3 wrote:
| > _I was interested in building something like this when
| COVID-19 first hit._
|
| Same here. I spent a panicked month and a half on full-time
| pre-production for a competing product in this space, as an
| unfortunate alternative to seeking a job at the time.
|
| > _There are currently at least 18 projects operating in this
| space._
|
| https://theonline.town/ is missing from your list. There's
| probably half a dozen more I could add if my notes from the
| time were properly organized.
|
| Please don't feel bad of course: we've reached a point where
| full quantification of all non-stealth competitors in a busy
| space is very difficult, if not impossible. Indeed, your list
| has projects I was previously unaware of.
|
| > _I think it 's still a space with a lot of potential, but
| there are now a huge number of competitors._
|
| The number of competitors was staggering. It felt like a
| veritable gold rush: almost every single novel design concept I
| came up with was eventually independently thought of, but
| nobody ever wove each together into something truly cohesive.
| Heck, even the name was jokingly thought of by some random
| person on Twitter months later.
|
| > _I still think that there 's a lot of potential for someone
| to come in and take over this whole space with a product more
| polished than is possible in the browser,_
|
| I don't think the browser as a platform is an issue; it's
| extremely capable. There's just a huge amount of apathy and
| entrenchment in that space now, and the usual rules pertaining
| to software moats apply just the same. It'd have to be
| something really special to unseat Zoom and all its clones at
| this point.
|
| > _I suspect that the winning team will come from the ranks of
| game developers, not webdevs who cracked open a webrtc tutorial
| one weekend_
|
| Having watched endless projects borne of weekend WebRTC
| tutorials spring up during that time period, I cannot agree
| more.
| JBorrow wrote:
| Similar products to this exist - wonder.me, and gather.town.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| You're right. Multiple startups trying to solve this problem.
| We want to stand out by making it incredibly easy for teams to
| build personalized spaces.
| rxsel wrote:
| Reminded me of the potential in proximity chat online outside the
| realm of video games where it's most prevalent today.
| fooddood wrote:
| Really cool but why is there no text chat?
|
| Edit: I communicate with my friends IRL primarily through text so
| having to use audio only is definitely a detractor for me.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We'll have to reimagine chat a bit for the platform. It's under
| works!
| Muralis wrote:
| Seems to be knockoff of https://spatial.chat/ . How do you
| differentiate?
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Our tech - we can handle twice the number of people in a room!
| We'll also be integrating work apps on to the platform.
| hliyan wrote:
| I went in expecting to hate it, but I ended up actually liking
| the idea. Since I'm looking at this from a work perspective, a
| whiteboard would be nice!
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Definitely! We're bringing whiteboard pretty soon !
| vyrotek wrote:
| Nice work. It looks like a fun new take of The Palace Chat!
| Minor49er wrote:
| I was thinking this too, but couldn't remember the name. Thank
| you!
|
| Also reminds me of Well of Souls by Synthetic Reality with all
| of the avatars floating around and the randomly-styled images
| that pop up. I dig it.
| saberience wrote:
| It really does
| karmelapple wrote:
| Now there's a name I haven't heard too recently - except for a
| handful of us who were part of a group many years ago.
|
| Did you have a favorite Palace server you logged into regularly
| back in the day?
| ThalesX wrote:
| Oh man I can't believe I'm seeing this out in the wild in
| 2021. I used to love The Palace back in the days; would go
| around an awesome Harry Potter themed server (or room, can't
| recall the exact structure) and kinda play around in
| Hogwarts.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| Someone told me about this today!! We need to build a tribute
| to The Palace within the product. On it.
| evanb wrote:
| When I talk IRL I don't use GIFs or stickers, and the only
| background is whatever is behind me.
|
| I like the idea of moving around to decide who you talk to; it is
| the premise behind jitsi-powered Work Adventure
| http://workadventu.re
| mxuribe wrote:
| I've never heard of work adventure. Seems really neat! Thanks
| for sharing!
| jMyles wrote:
| > jitsi-powered Work Adventure http://workadventu.re
|
| Getting a 404 - "Could not load map."
| remotelyyours wrote:
| This seems interesting. I'll check it out!
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the idea is to add some sort of flair, like you would
| in real life. For example, people wear unusual socks, and you'd
| notice them in real life, but in a video call you'll never see
| someone's socks. So the video call takes away that dimension of
| being alive.
|
| I'm not sure GIFs are the answer, but I think that's what the
| attempt is.
| remram wrote:
| I don't know if the spatial metaphor really brings anything. I
| think a few rooms, with proper tooling to signal activity and a
| way to preview (listen in before you decide to join, or better
| yet have it play a recent utterance from its beginning) would
| work wonders. Maybe the system could prompt participants to
| move to a separate room on sufficient activity, and remind
| participants to set a text subject once in a while during
| periods of activity.
|
| Spatialization gives you little, as it's still impossible to
| listen to multiple conversations at once, and discovering the
| mapping of location-to-topic is a problem. If you're setting up
| specific locations for specific topics in advance, what I want
| to know is who is there and how active they are, not where on a
| 2D canvas the admin has chosen to position it.
| seedie wrote:
| Couldn't agreed more. After seeing the first "Video
| conferencing" tool with spatial audio I was so excited. This
| excitement got lost instantly when we had our first online
| christmas party. Being able to hear everyone clearly and loud
| is not a bug its a feature.
|
| IRL I can change my focus on someone further away without
| moving at all. Only if Im really interested in that other
| conversation I will start moving.
|
| A pre-listen feature on mouse over would be awesome.
|
| While I'm still fascinated by the technical aspects imho
| theres still a lot of room for improvement in the
| implementation. But its great that there are so many projects
| tackling this problem and improving online get-togethers
| rozab wrote:
| I agree with the need to preview whats going on.
|
| In real life spaces, we often decide to switch to a different
| conversation from hearing a snippet or zoning in to what's
| going on around you when you're bored of the current talk. In
| this system, I feel like it would be rude to bring yourself
| over to a group and then leave again when you decide you're
| not interested in the conversation. Perhaps being able to
| mouse over a location to here the audio would be good. I
| don't think there's much expectation of privacy in a space
| like this anyway.
|
| I think this spacial arrangement would generally make such
| social dilemmas easier to handle. For instance, I think it
| would be more awkward to abruptly leave a room during a
| conversation than to just sidle away. Leaving slowly could
| implicitly invite others to follow.
|
| The internet has forced us to create a bunch of new social
| protocols and norms. Why not design our tools to fit with our
| existing ones?
| lukeschlather wrote:
| > When I talk IRL I don't use GIFs or stickers, and the only
| background is whatever is behind me.
|
| There is no "background" you are surrounded by 3 dimensional
| space with a variety of objects you can point at or manipulate.
| Given that you can't share a 3 dimensional space gifs and
| stickers give you a way to communicate things that require more
| than 2 dimensions to express.
| econti wrote:
| This is a shameless copycat of here.fm.
|
| I've been using here.fm for several months and it is awesome. I'd
| highly recommend you check here.fm out before supporting a
| company that rips off other people's work.
| woah wrote:
| There are around 20 different startups doing something like
| this.
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R5DXWtz4H7eIT5VbGYJE...
| econti wrote:
| Compare reslash's UI/UX to here's and you'll see it's more
| than just "similar". They literally copied the control bar at
| the bottom identically.
| remotelyyours wrote:
| We've similarities to here but our spatial audio is
| completely different. We can also handle upto 100 people in
| a room.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I'm digging the idea of spacial audio, but for my 2 cents I do
| not enjoy the interface. It seems to encourage a lot of loud
| geocities/MySpace-era visuals.
|
| I'd be interested in a top-down 2D space (like a million games,
| but just for example: Among Us) with spatial audio. That'd be
| pretty interesting.
|
| Judging by what my kids like to play, I could see a place in the
| market for a 2D virtual world with this kind of feature. Create
| your own spaces, "decorate" them, plus spatial audio. That sounds
| like a winning combo.
| brianjunyinchan wrote:
| Check out gather.town
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| That's more or else exactly what I was thinking. Thanks!
| darepublic wrote:
| People get louder as you go near to them? Interesting.. I think I
| would end up hanging around a corner somewhere in the virtual
| space
| smoyer wrote:
| This is a cool idea and I like that you've left space "at the
| top" for an enterprise plan. Of course, I don't know anyone with
| an account and don't use other social media, so how would I get
| started?
|
| Is there an interest in having an HN space? ... And how is that
| done fairly with a limit of 100 people?
| remotelyyours wrote:
| You can have multiple rooms. This means you can unlimited
| people in the space. We're also building a broadcast feature so
| that you can present to all the rooms at the same time. So, the
| crowd can still talk to each other while listening to a
| presentation.
| bndw wrote:
| I stumbled into this same idea with OBS and their virtual cam. I
| used a window capture to plumb in my VC partner and built a
| "digital collage" with images, gifs, and browsers.
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