The Airtime Experience
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[More from Mashable: Is This What the Facebook Phone Could Look Like? [PICS]]
Airtime is the best frictionless video platform for launching instant video conversations with random people who happen to have some shared interests.
That may sound scary, but it's actually kind of fun.
[More from Mashable: Viral ?Privacy Notice? on Facebook Is Fake]
This lightweight, powerful tool for social discovery based on shared Facebook?s interest graph and Facebook friends has relatively rich store of tools for enhancing your video conversations and controlling who you end up meeting.
Sean Parker's somewhat botched intro of the web-based video chat network does little to diminish its appeal once you start using it.
To get started you simply visit Airtime.com, sign into Facebook and authorize Airtime to see your Facebook contacts, likes, subscriptions, and so on. Airtime uses that information to connect you with like-minded people -- or at least those who share a least one of your interests (an "interest" can be defined as something about you, like your birth date or where you work or went to school -- as long as you've made those details visible on Facebook).
Get on Board
I signed on easily and before long was staring at a green, unappealing interface. The service accesses your webcam, so your picture immediately fills the left side of the screen. On the far right is a list of Facebook contacts and next to that is the option to narrow who you want to meet by location (near where Airtime thinks you are -- it inaccurately placed me in Brooklyn), Common Interests, and Friends of Friends.
There's a big button ?Talk to Someone,? which will get you started chatting. Hit it and Airtime will find you the next available person on the service who fits your criteria.
Initially, I was matched with a woman who, like me, had already signed on before the launch event. Her video feed filled the open space next to mine. We had a nice chat and I used my laptop webcam to show her the event space (Jimmy Fallon on stage preparing to intro Sean Parker).
Initially, you see chat counterparts you don't know listed as ?Anonymous? (though if you recognize them it?s hard to say they?re really anonymous). There?s a big button under their video chat window where you can ?Add? them. If they do the same, you can both see each other?s real name.
Even before this, though, you can see, listed below their video window, the interests Airtime used to bring you together. But Airtime gets even more specific than that. When you first connect -- and if you click in the Airtime logo near the top of the screen -- a list of share interests, friends and other details that connect you fade onto the screen.
It's fantastic shorthand for why you're now staring at this seemingly random person. In most cases, those details immediately sparked some conversation.
You do not have to add anyone or spend much time looking at them. Next to ?Add? is ?End? to drop out of the video rotation and next to that is the more intriguing option ?Next.? Hit that and Airtime will find you a new video partner.
I hit that button a couple more time and ran into Gary Vaynerchuk. The blogger, wine entrepreneur and social media expert is an Airtime investor and was effusive in his praise. "This is huge," he said. "It literally feels like Twitter in 2006."
It?s Who You Know
Running into Vaynerchuk, however, highlights one of the Airtime's obvious shortcomings. For all the A-List star power Parker brought on stage at the launch, this is still a service used mostly by industry insiders.
Sure, Airtime, shows me my whole Facebook contact list and who is on Facebook at the time. Yet, of those hundreds of people, only three were actually on Airtime. In addition, virtually every person I randomly met was in the tech or running a startup industry (even Mark Zuckerberg gave it a test drive).
I did meet one guy who ran a real estate business, though.
While it?s easy enough to remove interests from Airtime (this act does not remove them from Facebook), there?s no easy way to, say, break up interests into groups. In other words, I couldn?t filter out people who liked Dark Knight without removing them completely.
I would like the ability to sometimes chat with one random group of like-minded people who perhaps all went to my college and like Batman Returns, while at another time talk only to those who like the adorable dog Boo and the Mets.
What Airtime does let me do, however, is find chat partners who are interested in some of the trending topics that constantly scroll across the bottom of Airtime's screen. These topics are not related to your interests, so selecting them will quickly take you outside the somewhat safe environment of shared interests to a world of "what everyone else is interested in at this moment."
On the day I tested, Miley Cyrus had announced her engagement, so her name was trending. I chatted with a lot of Miley fans.
It is easy to add new interests: you simply click the ?Edit? button in your video window, start typing in a new interest and the related Facebook interest (usually with an identifying icon) will appear. You can use that same button to edit your account settings. There? s not much to do there, but I did notice that ?Publish Open Graph Actions? was set to opt out.
As a result, every person I accepted on Airtime appeared as a new friend on my Facebook Timeline, all collected in an Airtime box. I have since turned that off.
Watch This Video
Airtime's other major feature is the ability to share videos. You can search for videos -- YouTube only it seems -- directly on Airtime and then start sharing what you select. Once your video starts to play, your webcam feed shrinks to thumbamil size, with a small mic icon in the corner. You can mute yourself or turn on the mic, which lowers the YouTube video sound just enough so you can speak over it.
This cool feature makes it easy to share a favorite video and talk about it with your new Airtime friend. You can even both share videos at the same time -- though I really don?t know why you would do that.
Airtime does add a bit of entertaining gamification to the mix. When you?re talking to a random person (but not a direct contact?say someone who called you on Airtime), a small button with a star atop appears between the two video chat windows. Press it repeatedly and you give someone ?Applause.?
Each press adds one applause point and pressing repeatedly sends the bar shooting up to a max of 40 points at a time. I?m not sure why, but pressing the button repeatedly while talking to someone on video felt bit naughty.
What Will I See?
There?s a certain addictive nature to using Airtime: ?Who am I going to see next?? It could also be ?What am I going to see next??
Almost as soon as Parker and his partner Napster founder Shawn Fanning, announced they were creating a social video chat service for meeting new people, the inevitable comparisons with Chatroulette began. That service became notorious for people showing off their private parts to unwitting chat participants. Chatroulette eventually clamped down on the indecent video exposure, but the damage was done.
Parker insists that Airtime uses an algorithm to catch ?bad actors? and shut them down. In an Airtime interview, Parker told Mashable that the service looks for things that look "phallic," tell-tale signs of bad behavior like a "bomb," where the webcam view suddenly drops down from eye level to, say, a lap and hand motions that could indicate ilicit activty.
If the service finds such motion, the offending video is passed along to a human operator for analysis.
Some believe this raises privacy concerns, others say they have already proven it doesn?t work -- or at least does not work 100% of the time.
I did not test it, but did try and fool Airtime with a naked arm and two naked arms pressed together to look like ? well, you get the idea. Nothing happened, but this is the least scientific test you can perform.
I know many who review Airtime are comparing it to Facebook?s Skype video chat integration, but I think that?s a bit off. Skype is for talking directly to people you know, not meeting new people. Yes, there?s deep Facebook integration, but you still have to download an app.
There's also no concept of sharing videos on the service. Skype?s video quality is also generally better than what you?ll find on Airtime (at least at this early stage), and it's also available on more platforms. If you want to talk to someone you know, I still think Skype is the way to go.
Airtime is not alone in the Facebook social video chat space. Speeksy (still in closed beta) is coming, though the site images make it look like it's about meeting attractive people.
There's also Rounds, a Facebook app which, like Airtime, encourages meeting new people. It's interface is not as well developed as Airtime, but it does encourage photo sharing (mostly of screen grabs) and shared game-play. They're currently developing a new desktop application, RoundsToGo, that will let users stay connected without an open browser.
For meeting new people with shared interests, though, Airtime is a strong and effective entry in the space. It?s easy to use, entertaining and makes created shared experiences incredibly easy. I?m anxious to dive back in.
By now, many of you will have at least tried Airtime. Tell us in the comments about your experiences: have they been positive? Have you met new people and made new friends?
Bonus: Celebrities Turn Out for the Airtime Launch
Jimmy Fallon at Airtime Event
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This story originally published on Mashable here.
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