8 ms·

Sean Parker's Airtime deflates

49 points by SFnoob 14y ago

5c4r3d 14y ago
Airtime is fizzling out despite Parker's fame and connections http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/airtime-stuck/ http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/airtime-stuck/
dave1619 14y ago
Is this based just on AppData? Can any users of Airtime confirm the drop-off?
- 5c4r3d 14y ago
  Are you questioning the accuracy of Appdata? Do you expect people to do phone polls to find and talk to users rather than use Appdata, Quantcast, etc?
  - dave1619 14y ago
    Just wanting to hear from Airtime users to see if the dropoff in traffic has been significant enough to downgrade the value of the service to them. I remember there were a bunch of people who really liked Airtime when it first came out. I just want to know if they're still using it or not. Because sometimes the press can over-dramatize things... ie., maybe traffic has dropped but the quality of experience is still very high and there's a group of people who love it. Or sometimes the press gets it right... ie., airtime really is in trouble.
- idoh 14y ago
  AppData gets their fb data from publicly available app data from the Facebook API. Based on the FB apps I've worked on, their numbers are just rounded a bit, but are pretty much the same as what a developer would see using Facebook Insights.
rokhayakebe 14y ago
I think one day we will come to terms with the fact that there are only 24 hours in the life of each one of us per day. How many different pass-times can we have?
- mertd 14y ago
  I think one day we will come to terms with the fact that there are only 3 meals in the life of each one of us per day. How many different restaurants can we have?
  - rokhayakebe 14y ago
    Sites like Airtime are similar to FB, Google +, Twitter etc... They are not different restaurants, they are different dishes serving the same need (satiation), and the point is how many different meals can you have per day before you are full?
therealarmen 14y ago
Fact is, meeting new people is hard. Airtime forces you to connect with Facebook, so anyone you meet knows exactly who you are. Which makes using Airtime hard. At least Chatroulette introduced a fun element by letting users stay anonymous. In order to use Airtime you have to willingly introduce yourself and strike up conversation multiple times per hour. For many people, this is their worst nightmare. Quite frankly I'm happy interacting with my existing friend group (via real life or virtual means) as well as meeting a new acquaintance every now and then. I don't need to meet hundreds of new people every week to satisfy my social needs.
- lcusack 14y ago
  The other problem is that it takes your time. The service may be free monetarily but it is extremely expensive to use.
- larrys 14y ago
  "Fact is, meeting new people is hard." Meeting a limited amount of new people is fine. I definitely like some of the people that I've met on HN but have never seen them either visually in real time or in person. And I have no desire to do so. I think that's a disadvantage. Now you might say it would be cool if the person you met was a pretty girl (or guy) but would it really be? Or just another reason to waste time gawking at someone located in another time zone and waste time dreaming of something that would never happen.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  Hmm, now that you mention these two points, random chat with my facebook network actually sounds pretty fun.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    "Oh, hi, Mom." Next idea...
spdy 14y ago
This totally blew me off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYMRpiRSSaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYMRpiRSSaw What is their target group? Billionaires? Tell me what this app can do not how awesome you are. Funny thing is they do the same mistake on their homepage. I have no f* clue what they do only that i have to login with my facebook account to see anything.
- _sentient 14y ago
  I actually liked the ad. It was clearly a parody of excessive wealth, and seemed somewhat in the same vein as the famed Old Spice commercials. Of course, it tells me almost nothing about the product, but it does certainly peak your interest. Not necessarily enough to get over the FB integration, but it's something. Sometimes I wonder if people dislike the service itself, or just the founder behind it. Given Sean Parker's famed brazen personality, I'm sure there will be more than a little schadenfreude in SV if this venture goes belly up.
  - larrys 14y ago
    I liked the ad as well. Reminded me a little of http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/ http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/ video. "Of course, it tells me almost nothing about the product" I think it piques your interest and gives you a broad overview. But while it's funny it takes to long and tries to hard to be slick and funny. With the dollarshaveclub.com video you felt like you were being played but time passed much easier.
  - spdy 14y ago
    Its not that i dislike Sean Parker quite the contrary he has been at the right place many times before. To name two Napster and Facebook. But the video does not get me excited at all. I cant connect with the theme inside and they dont tell me a compelling or fun reason to jump over the FB Wall. Maybe something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWpbfZHHzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWpbfZHHzc would be better for the range of 15-25 year old people who have to jump start this. Because no one else will.
  - boredguy8 14y ago
SFnoob 14y ago
The thing I don't get is why they thought Chatroulette was more than just a fad. Anyone could see that Chatroulette was a flavor of the month kind of thing that faded out right away. Did they really think that taking Chatroulette and making it a super invasive fb app to minimize the amount of penises was the next big idea?
- citricsquid 14y ago
  Chatroulette is still wildly popular, they have anywhere from 15k - 70k users online at any time. It's not what it once was and it's not a great business, but to say it's a "fad" is just plain wrong. I just loaded the site and I can see 52,000 people online.
  - SFnoob 14y ago
    I stand corrected. But I still don't think chatroulette or a chatroulette derivative is the next big idea.
- eurleif 14y ago
  I think the story they told themselves was basically: Look at this graph! http://i.imgur.com/97fL8.png http://i.imgur.com/97fL8.png ChatRoulette was a rocketship to the stars, growing as fast as any social site could hope to... then it got filled with dicks, and people stopped using it. We just have to eliminate the dicks and it will be the best thing ever! But that's not really what happened. ChatRoulette was (and still is) popular as a legitimate social site, but it was such a rocketship mainly because it was so shocking. I was living in a college dorm during the time ChatRoulette was going viral, and I remember guys shouting in the hallway, "You have to see all these dicks!" The idea that ChatRoulette was suddenly besieged by dicks, causing it to lose popularity, is just fantasy.
- chatroulettefan 14y ago
  Chatroulette keeps growing and other sites like http://chatrandom.com http://chatrandom.com & http://omegle.com http://omegle.com are doing just as well. I think people like the penises and that's why airtime never went anywhere!
staunch 14y ago
What a lame post. Anyone who judges a consumer web product within just weeks of its release doesn't have half a clue. 99.9% of new product releases are not like the iPhone. Airtime may very well not become hugely popular (I wouldn't bet on it personally) but they raised $33,000,000(!) That's enough to last quite a few product iterations.
- 5c4r3d 14y ago
  Most consumer web products don't have multimillion dollar launches with celebrities and tons of press or six figures to spend on a viral video. If these guys paid for all that attention and still lose users it's a story worth telling
- 3am_hackernews 14y ago
  Raising massive amounts of money does not necessarily mean that is going to be a good product. Contrarily, all this money seems kind of down the drain at this point. The author is trying to make a point that the product is not living upto its 'supposed' reputation - the money, the investors, the creators etc. For products like these I think that the first few weeks are all the more crucial.
- chestercheetaz 14y ago
  I know! 33M raised! It just HAS to be successful....hopefully as successful as Color!
- untog 14y ago
  but they raised $33,000,000(!) That's enough to last quite a few product iterations. Right, well I guess the question here is are we talking abour Airtime the product, or Airtime the company? Because the product can flop even with $33m behind it. Very easily.
  - staunch 14y ago
    Of course it can flop. The whole company can too. The point is that judging a company that launched so recently doesn't make any sense. This post just feels like someone who wants to point at laugh at someone for not winning a race that they've only just begun.
grandalf 14y ago
I like the concept of airtime, but it's one of those things I'm unlikely to use b/c I'd feel obligated to get dressed nicely and create a nice looking set for my video chat companions to observe me in. Services like turntable.fm are a lot lower friction, but of course lack the getting to know someone component. Oddly, Airtime combines the prejudice of a visual first impression with the idea that two people can spark an interesting discussion. I think the magic of text chat is that you can actually have a worthwhile conversation and not care at all what the person looks like.
bksenior 14y ago
Meeting new people online is not a large problem, people aren't clamoring to do it. So a solution isn't particularly appealing to the masses, no matter how pretty or how many billionaires are behind it.
seeingfurther 14y ago
I think with the drop off in usage we are seeing an initial concept that was flawed BUT I think Fanning and Parker are definitely onto something innovative. A few tweaks and Airtime could be a hit. The overriding concern for most folks is clicking the button and having to talk to a complete stranger. Airtime should refocus and offer the ability to chat with specific people and pay them for their time. (e.g. entrepreneur wants 10 mins w/ Harjeet Taggar) This type of strategy instantly values each person's time based on supply and demand, creates a place to earn extra income for folks with knowledge and provides a more streamlined way for people to get advice and start conversations that are important to them. Just my 2 cents.
austenallred 14y ago
I used it once out of the pure novelty, and I actually met a pretty cool entrepreneur, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it; it was a little bit stressful. It was cool, but it was a chore.
davidspinks 14y ago
It wasn't the most lean approach to launching a startup. If they did some testing up front, they should have been able to identify the user retention issues early on. It's weird that a team with so much experience didn't properly test the product before investing so much time and money into it. I doubt that this is the last iteration we see from the Airtime team, but the initial product was definitely telling. In the end, looking in to a company from the outside, no one really knows wtf they're talking about when they pass judgements.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
tempire 14y ago
I'd be happy to try this service, but the Facebook requirement turns me away; I can't help but think this hurts their acceptance in the tech community. Though mainstream populace probably wouldn't care, social networks only get traction after the tech folk create that traction.
- alttab 14y ago
  Disagree. It was college laymen who made Facebook what it is.
CamperBob2 14y ago
One of the comments on the site, from user Ronmovies, says it all: I generally use iChat and Skype for chatting, but I was curious and checked out Airtime. The first thing that greeted me was a Log In with Facebook form that warned that this app would have access to: "Your profile info: description, activities, birthday, education history, hometown, interests, likes, location, religious and political views and work history." In addition, "This app may post on your behalf, including videos you watched, videos you posted and more." Why on earth would I want to give them all that power, including the unspecified "and more" when chat platforms like Skype aren't nearly as freakishly invasive? Chatroulette succeeded because of its subversive texture and flavor, not in spite of it. Airtime, meanwhile, sounds about as subversive as the John Birch Society. If someone like Fanning doesn't understand that, then I don't think we'll see any genuinely interesting startups from the "Facebook mafia."
- samstave 14y ago
  Ha! ANY app that has "login with Facebook" as their primary Auth is a complete show stopper for me.
  - alttab 14y ago
    Agreed. There is no reason I would give any service on the Internet the information I have regretfully given Facebook over the years. Programmers are you listening? Stop using Facebook connect!!!
    - samstave 14y ago
      Plus, I have never had an FB account. Never will. (And while I have a gmail/G+ account - I would refuse to use those either)
tibbon 14y ago
I didn't, and still don't understand what they are trying to do with Airtime, how it is worth any multiplier of what they've raised around it, or why it was so hyped up. Parker was able to raise money around it mainly because of who he is, not because of what he was building. It didn't fill any market need. There are hundreds of video chat solutions out there. "Randomly meeting people non-anonymously via videochat" didn't sound like a market that really needed met. My old boss seemed to think that it was the next big thing, because "The investors on it know more than you do about the market", but I didn't and still don't buy it. Chatroulette was interesting (and got huge) because of the anonymity. It was funny, random, and dangerous feeling. You never knew when you'd be bombed with a penis (about every 2-3 refreshes generally) and everyone was looking for something different. It didn't make sense commercially, which is exactly why people liked it. It spoke to the wild-west feeling of the internet that we're quickly losing, or have already lost and just fall in love with small shadows of it. Airtime does none of this. Instead it requires my Facebook information, which I dislike the fact that it exists even and dislike giving it out to additional companies even more. And then provides a very sterile experience. If I remember right when I tried it on launch day, they tried to build in light gamification things (awards/points), and pulled in everything you "liked" on Facebook to try to match you up with people. Neither of which made it a better product. What I "like" on Facebook has very little to do with what I actually enjoy, or want to talk with random strangers about online. Here's a market for actual video chat: I want something that gives me 1080p, crystal clear, multiparty video chat with great audio quality. Unfortunately, this requires bigger broadband (especially upload) connection than americans have, and higher quality cameras and microphones than the majority have. Make it look like what you imagine video chat should look like. Then maybe we'll have something interesting. Oh yea, and make it work across any devices. No faux-open stuff like Facetime.
- samstave 14y ago
  Their whole goal was to rasie 33MM of (NOT THEIR OWN) money and build a chatroulette that had some level of social credibility such that they could be acquired by FB so as to be the user vid/chat/call infrastructure for FB... Not looking too good.
- andrewhillman 14y ago
dlitwak 14y ago
I've always said that I think the ideas/businesses of famous founders don't undergo enough scrutiny. As a complete nobody, I can vouch for the fact that I have been GRILLED by VCs and angels in meetings. Some of these meetings led us to realize flaws in our go-to-market strategy, and pointed out the customer acquisition obstacles. I feel like famous founders often aren't asked these questions by VCs, they will just invest because of the name, and then they go down the wrong path, building a product that isn't completely necessary, without a true understanding of the market. I have literally been told by investors, when I asked why the invested in a certain product I thought was a dud, that "oh well the founders did ___ and I just bet on them figuring it out, even though I knew they were barking up the wrong tree." Sometimes the scrutiny that can come with being a nobody is valuable.
notlisted 14y ago
I tried it when it came out, on one of my duplicate accounts (apparently part of the 87MM 'fakes') because it's none of Airtime's business who my friends are. Actually met some nice people... That said, never used it again.
ruggeri 14y ago
Random question that pops into my head: who created the throwaway to post this?

49 points by SFnoob 14y ago

Airtime is fizzling out despite Parker's fame and connections http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/airtime-stuck/ http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/airtime-stuck/

dave1619 14y ago

Is this based just on AppData? Can any users of Airtime confirm the drop-off?

5c4r3d 14y ago
Are you questioning the accuracy of Appdata? Do you expect people to do phone polls to find and talk to users rather than use Appdata, Quantcast, etc?
- dave1619 14y ago
  Just wanting to hear from Airtime users to see if the dropoff in traffic has been significant enough to downgrade the value of the service to them. I remember there were a bunch of people who really liked Airtime when it first came out. I just want to know if they're still using it or not. Because sometimes the press can over-dramatize things... ie., maybe traffic has dropped but the quality of experience is still very high and there's a group of people who love it. Or sometimes the press gets it right... ie., airtime really is in trouble.
idoh 14y ago
AppData gets their fb data from publicly available app data from the Facebook API. Based on the FB apps I've worked on, their numbers are just rounded a bit, but are pretty much the same as what a developer would see using Facebook Insights.

rokhayakebe 14y ago

I think one day we will come to terms with the fact that there are only 24 hours in the life of each one of us per day. How many different pass-times can we have?

mertd 14y ago
I think one day we will come to terms with the fact that there are only 3 meals in the life of each one of us per day. How many different restaurants can we have?
- rokhayakebe 14y ago
  Sites like Airtime are similar to FB, Google +, Twitter etc... They are not different restaurants, they are different dishes serving the same need (satiation), and the point is how many different meals can you have per day before you are full?

therealarmen 14y ago

Fact is, meeting new people is hard. Airtime forces you to connect with Facebook, so anyone you meet knows exactly who you are. Which makes using Airtime hard. At least Chatroulette introduced a fun element by letting users stay anonymous. In order to use Airtime you have to willingly introduce yourself and strike up conversation multiple times per hour. For many people, this is their worst nightmare. Quite frankly I'm happy interacting with my existing friend group (via real life or virtual means) as well as meeting a new acquaintance every now and then. I don't need to meet hundreds of new people every week to satisfy my social needs.

lcusack 14y ago
The other problem is that it takes your time. The service may be free monetarily but it is extremely expensive to use.
larrys 14y ago
"Fact is, meeting new people is hard." Meeting a limited amount of new people is fine. I definitely like some of the people that I've met on HN but have never seen them either visually in real time or in person. And I have no desire to do so. I think that's a disadvantage. Now you might say it would be cool if the person you met was a pretty girl (or guy) but would it really be? Or just another reason to waste time gawking at someone located in another time zone and waste time dreaming of something that would never happen.
hkmurakami 14y ago
Hmm, now that you mention these two points, random chat with my facebook network actually sounds pretty fun.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  "Oh, hi, Mom." Next idea...

spdy 14y ago

This totally blew me off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYMRpiRSSaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYMRpiRSSaw What is their target group? Billionaires? Tell me what this app can do not how awesome you are. Funny thing is they do the same mistake on their homepage. I have no f* clue what they do only that i have to login with my facebook account to see anything.

_sentient 14y ago
I actually liked the ad. It was clearly a parody of excessive wealth, and seemed somewhat in the same vein as the famed Old Spice commercials. Of course, it tells me almost nothing about the product, but it does certainly peak your interest. Not necessarily enough to get over the FB integration, but it's something. Sometimes I wonder if people dislike the service itself, or just the founder behind it. Given Sean Parker's famed brazen personality, I'm sure there will be more than a little schadenfreude in SV if this venture goes belly up.
- larrys 14y ago
  I liked the ad as well. Reminded me a little of http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/ http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/ video. "Of course, it tells me almost nothing about the product" I think it piques your interest and gives you a broad overview. But while it's funny it takes to long and tries to hard to be slick and funny. With the dollarshaveclub.com video you felt like you were being played but time passed much easier.
- spdy 14y ago
  Its not that i dislike Sean Parker quite the contrary he has been at the right place many times before. To name two Napster and Facebook. But the video does not get me excited at all. I cant connect with the theme inside and they dont tell me a compelling or fun reason to jump over the FB Wall. Maybe something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWpbfZHHzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWpbfZHHzc would be better for the range of 15-25 year old people who have to jump start this. Because no one else will.
- boredguy8 14y ago

SFnoob 14y ago

The thing I don't get is why they thought Chatroulette was more than just a fad. Anyone could see that Chatroulette was a flavor of the month kind of thing that faded out right away. Did they really think that taking Chatroulette and making it a super invasive fb app to minimize the amount of penises was the next big idea?

citricsquid 14y ago
Chatroulette is still wildly popular, they have anywhere from 15k - 70k users online at any time. It's not what it once was and it's not a great business, but to say it's a "fad" is just plain wrong. I just loaded the site and I can see 52,000 people online.
- SFnoob 14y ago
  I stand corrected. But I still don't think chatroulette or a chatroulette derivative is the next big idea.
eurleif 14y ago
I think the story they told themselves was basically: Look at this graph! http://i.imgur.com/97fL8.png http://i.imgur.com/97fL8.png ChatRoulette was a rocketship to the stars, growing as fast as any social site could hope to... then it got filled with dicks, and people stopped using it. We just have to eliminate the dicks and it will be the best thing ever! But that's not really what happened. ChatRoulette was (and still is) popular as a legitimate social site, but it was such a rocketship mainly because it was so shocking. I was living in a college dorm during the time ChatRoulette was going viral, and I remember guys shouting in the hallway, "You have to see all these dicks!" The idea that ChatRoulette was suddenly besieged by dicks, causing it to lose popularity, is just fantasy.
chatroulettefan 14y ago
Chatroulette keeps growing and other sites like http://chatrandom.com http://chatrandom.com & http://omegle.com http://omegle.com are doing just as well. I think people like the penises and that's why airtime never went anywhere!

staunch 14y ago

What a lame post. Anyone who judges a consumer web product within just weeks of its release doesn't have half a clue. 99.9% of new product releases are not like the iPhone. Airtime may very well not become hugely popular (I wouldn't bet on it personally) but they raised $33,000,000(!) That's enough to last quite a few product iterations.

5c4r3d 14y ago
Most consumer web products don't have multimillion dollar launches with celebrities and tons of press or six figures to spend on a viral video. If these guys paid for all that attention and still lose users it's a story worth telling
3am_hackernews 14y ago
Raising massive amounts of money does not necessarily mean that is going to be a good product. Contrarily, all this money seems kind of down the drain at this point. The author is trying to make a point that the product is not living upto its 'supposed' reputation - the money, the investors, the creators etc. For products like these I think that the first few weeks are all the more crucial.
chestercheetaz 14y ago
I know! 33M raised! It just HAS to be successful....hopefully as successful as Color!
untog 14y ago
but they raised $33,000,000(!) That's enough to last quite a few product iterations. Right, well I guess the question here is are we talking abour Airtime the product, or Airtime the company? Because the product can flop even with $33m behind it. Very easily.
- staunch 14y ago
  Of course it can flop. The whole company can too. The point is that judging a company that launched so recently doesn't make any sense. This post just feels like someone who wants to point at laugh at someone for not winning a race that they've only just begun.

grandalf 14y ago

I like the concept of airtime, but it's one of those things I'm unlikely to use b/c I'd feel obligated to get dressed nicely and create a nice looking set for my video chat companions to observe me in. Services like turntable.fm are a lot lower friction, but of course lack the getting to know someone component. Oddly, Airtime combines the prejudice of a visual first impression with the idea that two people can spark an interesting discussion. I think the magic of text chat is that you can actually have a worthwhile conversation and not care at all what the person looks like.

bksenior 14y ago

Meeting new people online is not a large problem, people aren't clamoring to do it. So a solution isn't particularly appealing to the masses, no matter how pretty or how many billionaires are behind it.

seeingfurther 14y ago

I think with the drop off in usage we are seeing an initial concept that was flawed BUT I think Fanning and Parker are definitely onto something innovative. A few tweaks and Airtime could be a hit. The overriding concern for most folks is clicking the button and having to talk to a complete stranger. Airtime should refocus and offer the ability to chat with specific people and pay them for their time. (e.g. entrepreneur wants 10 mins w/ Harjeet Taggar) This type of strategy instantly values each person's time based on supply and demand, creates a place to earn extra income for folks with knowledge and provides a more streamlined way for people to get advice and start conversations that are important to them. Just my 2 cents.

austenallred 14y ago

I used it once out of the pure novelty, and I actually met a pretty cool entrepreneur, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it; it was a little bit stressful. It was cool, but it was a chore.

davidspinks 14y ago

It wasn't the most lean approach to launching a startup. If they did some testing up front, they should have been able to identify the user retention issues early on. It's weird that a team with so much experience didn't properly test the product before investing so much time and money into it. I doubt that this is the last iteration we see from the Airtime team, but the initial product was definitely telling. In the end, looking in to a company from the outside, no one really knows wtf they're talking about when they pass judgements.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

tempire 14y ago

I'd be happy to try this service, but the Facebook requirement turns me away; I can't help but think this hurts their acceptance in the tech community. Though mainstream populace probably wouldn't care, social networks only get traction after the tech folk create that traction.

alttab 14y ago
Disagree. It was college laymen who made Facebook what it is.

CamperBob2 14y ago

One of the comments on the site, from user Ronmovies, says it all: I generally use iChat and Skype for chatting, but I was curious and checked out Airtime. The first thing that greeted me was a Log In with Facebook form that warned that this app would have access to: "Your profile info: description, activities, birthday, education history, hometown, interests, likes, location, religious and political views and work history." In addition, "This app may post on your behalf, including videos you watched, videos you posted and more." Why on earth would I want to give them all that power, including the unspecified "and more" when chat platforms like Skype aren't nearly as freakishly invasive? Chatroulette succeeded because of its subversive texture and flavor, not in spite of it. Airtime, meanwhile, sounds about as subversive as the John Birch Society. If someone like Fanning doesn't understand that, then I don't think we'll see any genuinely interesting startups from the "Facebook mafia."

samstave 14y ago
Ha! ANY app that has "login with Facebook" as their primary Auth is a complete show stopper for me.
- alttab 14y ago
  Agreed. There is no reason I would give any service on the Internet the information I have regretfully given Facebook over the years. Programmers are you listening? Stop using Facebook connect!!!
  - samstave 14y ago
    Plus, I have never had an FB account. Never will. (And while I have a gmail/G+ account - I would refuse to use those either)

tibbon 14y ago

I didn't, and still don't understand what they are trying to do with Airtime, how it is worth any multiplier of what they've raised around it, or why it was so hyped up. Parker was able to raise money around it mainly because of who he is, not because of what he was building. It didn't fill any market need. There are hundreds of video chat solutions out there. "Randomly meeting people non-anonymously via videochat" didn't sound like a market that really needed met. My old boss seemed to think that it was the next big thing, because "The investors on it know more than you do about the market", but I didn't and still don't buy it. Chatroulette was interesting (and got huge) because of the anonymity. It was funny, random, and dangerous feeling. You never knew when you'd be bombed with a penis (about every 2-3 refreshes generally) and everyone was looking for something different. It didn't make sense commercially, which is exactly why people liked it. It spoke to the wild-west feeling of the internet that we're quickly losing, or have already lost and just fall in love with small shadows of it. Airtime does none of this. Instead it requires my Facebook information, which I dislike the fact that it exists even and dislike giving it out to additional companies even more. And then provides a very sterile experience. If I remember right when I tried it on launch day, they tried to build in light gamification things (awards/points), and pulled in everything you "liked" on Facebook to try to match you up with people. Neither of which made it a better product. What I "like" on Facebook has very little to do with what I actually enjoy, or want to talk with random strangers about online. Here's a market for actual video chat: I want something that gives me 1080p, crystal clear, multiparty video chat with great audio quality. Unfortunately, this requires bigger broadband (especially upload) connection than americans have, and higher quality cameras and microphones than the majority have. Make it look like what you imagine video chat should look like. Then maybe we'll have something interesting. Oh yea, and make it work across any devices. No faux-open stuff like Facetime.

samstave 14y ago
Their whole goal was to rasie 33MM of (NOT THEIR OWN) money and build a chatroulette that had some level of social credibility such that they could be acquired by FB so as to be the user vid/chat/call infrastructure for FB... Not looking too good.
andrewhillman 14y ago

dlitwak 14y ago

I've always said that I think the ideas/businesses of famous founders don't undergo enough scrutiny. As a complete nobody, I can vouch for the fact that I have been GRILLED by VCs and angels in meetings. Some of these meetings led us to realize flaws in our go-to-market strategy, and pointed out the customer acquisition obstacles. I feel like famous founders often aren't asked these questions by VCs, they will just invest because of the name, and then they go down the wrong path, building a product that isn't completely necessary, without a true understanding of the market. I have literally been told by investors, when I asked why the invested in a certain product I thought was a dud, that "oh well the founders did ___ and I just bet on them figuring it out, even though I knew they were barking up the wrong tree." Sometimes the scrutiny that can come with being a nobody is valuable.

notlisted 14y ago

I tried it when it came out, on one of my duplicate accounts (apparently part of the 87MM 'fakes') because it's none of Airtime's business who my friends are. Actually met some nice people... That said, never used it again.

ruggeri 14y ago

Random question that pops into my head: who created the throwaway to post this?