Partying over Internet: Technological Aspects
250bpm.com
250bpm.com
1. Sub groups without losing the context of the full group. I want to focus on a set of people and chat with them while also aware of what other groups are around. I want to be able to bring people into these groups at will. This also adds a gamification aspect where you can adjust groups, i.e. randomly mix, mix people who haven't talked to each other yet etc.
2. Multi monitor. I want to see everyone and real estate is limited on a single screen. I should be able to add multiple windows or computers to my chat and have everyone spread across those windows. Only one window / computer will submit video and audio for me though.
I really prefer it to discord/whatever other voice client because you can also do stuff like hierarchical broadcasting, a parent channel can broadcast to children without children broadcasting back.
Different 'rooms'? You could keep the video tiles for all people on screen organized by room, then the individual chooses which one to join for audio. You could include a push-to-talk 'announce' button to send your audio to all rooms in addition to the normal open mic in the room you belong to at that time.
I picture a mosaic of webcam feeds that have border lines drawn to indicate group members.
It’s been a LOT of fun and has been growing quickly. Our last party had about 40 people in it and every time we do it we know fewer of the people who show up.
Is there interaction happening between the participants?
> every time we do it we know fewer of the people who show up.
This sounds like the retention rate is low, or is this a wrong conclusion?
Also I would be interested to learn for whom this is fun, and why.
I think they mean that the percentage of their close friends goes down each time, as more people are invited. Network effect.
Clubbing, is for extroverts who enjoy socializing and being on the spotlight. Clubs have lots of lights, people dress in shiny colors and seek to bring attention to themselves. Camera sharing is the ideal format for this.
Raving, is for introverts. The setting is dark, people wear black and usually prefer to be left on their own and focus internally and in the music. It's a way to enjoy a social situation without being overwhelmed by the crowd. Avatars and virtual worlds is the ideal format for this.
Of course, I am generalizing here but I'm simply trying to make a point. An extrovert will not enjoy a setting where they can't draw attention to themselves. An introvert will not enjoy a setting where being in the spotlight is the default mode.
Speaking only by my own experience as being an introvert-extrovert and attending both clubs and raves I can tell you that there is minimal overlap in the crowds. A different type of people is in clubs and a different type of people is in raves. Generalizing both as "partying" is confusing, at least.
I’ve been doing zoom teleparties for a few weeks now and they’re really kind of magical. I started when I had to cancel one of my IRL dance parties and we thought we’d give it a go. As a meatspace party promoter and DJ i was really surprised at how successful these are, and how much of the real life party vibe translates. At our peak we had 160 or so zoom guests and you really felt that presence!
With the apps we have now social interactions are limited to chat and physical communication (lots of people will mirror folks’ movements, which is always a joy). There’s so much you can do.
I’ve got a ton of ideas and sketches for a real online party and event app — a kind of perfect blend of my UX life and my party life. I’d love to work on it if I could find some folks with web conferencing experience.
https://extendedmind.io/blog/2020/3/20/video-conferencing-wo...
Example of a house party thrown in hubs: https://www.facebook.com/1365390312/posts/10216647011272117/...
And of course, there's always this: "Leaving your mic on is the new reply-all."
They offer a kind of socializing space. It is organized by virtual tables. Each table holds up to 4 participants via webcam. That way you do not have the typical issue of large zoom calls where only a few people can talk at a time. You get a lot smaller conversations much like a real networking event.
They seem to be still starting out, so there are a few issues. But I hope they iron them out. The concept seems really promising.
This needs to be more than just separate channels for it to work well. There should be some bleeding of audio between adjacent conversations, and maybe some limited video. I'm thinking perhaps "avatars" of people that get updated once a minute with their current video feed so you can look around the shared social area and get an idea of what is going on and have some sort of shared atmosphere. Maybe a shared background music track?
I heard somewhere that there are around 300 public grids, most of which are on the hypergrid. There are a few significant forks, most notably Halcyon (created by the late InWorldz LLC) but there are only a handful of grids running those.
We've been building this ;) will launch soon.
I always thought it had a really cool party atmosphere for concerts. Here's a video of a concert that I took. No audio, unfortunately.
Edit: didn't know about Live, but the original[0] one, TurnTable.fm with the avatars was really a fantastic place to be in the Internet. So sad to see it end, but maybe someone can revive it?