This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity.
I'll try to write a real response tonight on my blog (http://chrishateswriting.com)
I'll try to write a real response tonight on my blog (http://chrishateswriting.com)
If you're going to make such a strong statement, it would make sense to at least put out a tl;dr; of your argument. Otherwise, your comment just functions as an advertisement for your blog post. (I'm sure that wasn't your intention).
I take his link less as a blog-advertisement, and more of a "I'm more likely to update that than edit my comment on HN". I'd love it if, after he writes his blog post, he were to summarize it in an edit to his HN comment.
But stating that Sam was "completely and utterly wrong" isn't constructive and doesn't advance any argument.
I tend to agree with this statement. Anonymity and Pseudonymity (two diff things) type conversations will decay if the community allows it and the audience on the medium encourages the behavior. I've seen plenty of negative "real name" conversations. I've also seen plenty of great *nym conversations too.
SV misses the point on this in my opinion as well.
[edited] I just want to add the original content and tone also sets the stage for what happens in the comment sections.
In the case of Secret, I'm a little bleh on the app but think the UI is sweet. I haven't seen the negative side of it yet nor have I posted negative comments either.
Omegle used to be a lot of fun when it was mostly college students who were bored waiting for class or something and wanted to talk to someone interesting in a different place.
It's a good 'risk free' way to get to know someone.
I think a mobile app that did one to one anonymous communication restricted by .edu would be really successful (especially if it was just your school initially so you could potentially meet).
The general idea of self-censorship in non-anonymous systems is probably the main counter that I could think of to the original post. You get bad and good from it, but it's better to live in a world with both as a result than with neither.
Current Omegle is filled with too much spam - I would even take the .edu thing a step further and start at just one school (restrict by specific school) so you have the anonymity of the chat to talk to someone, but then they're also around if you hear about something going on that night or they want to meet etc. I think that would be neat.
I think it'd be a popular chat web/phone app on college campuses if people knew about it and a good addition to what I'd thought would make a good dating site at the time (http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/), but I think tinder does some of that now.
Anyway, that's awesome you got something up!
I'm defaulting it to "any college", at least for now. If the feature catches on, I might make the default change based on the user's college (i.e., create a list of colleges which have a significant userbase).