Introducing Airtime, a new browser based service which allows you to share live video chat experiences with people in your Facebook network, but also allow you to discover people beyond your network who share similar interests.
Airtime was created created by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning,who previously co founded Napster. Airtime is simple to use and only requires a Facebook account and a webcam to start using. You can start chatting with Facebook friends, mutual friends and those who are in the same location and share common interests.
Airtime hooks you up with a random person based on your selected preferences, you can remain anonymous to the person who you are talking to or you can choose to reveal your real details, when you are bored or want to talk to someone else you simply hit the ‘next’ button.
Airtime was launched yesterday in New York. It was a celebrity filled launch which included the likes of Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys and Jim Carrey. The launch didn’t go smoothly, there were several technical glitches. It was also revealed that Airtime takes pictures of your chat and saves it, it is designed to protect your safety.
First Impressions
I decided to give it a whizz, the getting started was as seamless as described, within minutes I was up and running, after the first few people decided to skip me, someone decided to chat, his name was Daniel who works for Kiva, a nonprofit, personal micro-lending site that facilitates loans between lenders and low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. He was out in Kenya, we talked briefly about life, work and then we connected and left.
After a few more of people not there, or hiding their cameras I stumbled to Alison Chesworth, founder of Toy Box live. Again we had a pleasant conversation about each others work, I was surprised to learn there is a strong market for toy rentals in the UK. She also managed to get a ski themed overlay, which was something I couldn’t replicate.
It appears to be a good product, It is simple and intuitive to use, there were a lot of people skipping past without even saying a word (perhaps looking for celebrities), at the moment it seems to be something you would use when you are bored to kill time. It will be interesting to see how it performs down the line and how they plan to monetise it, I can see ads creeping in but I will certainly be keeping an eye on this one.
Video
Watch a short video of how it works below:
Have you tried Airtime yet? What are your thoughts/experiences?
08/06/2012 NOTE: The ski overlay Alison had was a feature of her own webcam software and not Airtime.
