You may have heard about it on the news, but it’s more likely that you’ve heard the buzz on the Internet. Airtime is the newest Facebook “social video app” to gain major notoriety among social media enthusiasts. Created by Napster co-founders, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, Airtime is a new video chat application that has been compared to programs such as Chatroulette and Google+ Hangout, so the question is “What makes Airtime different?’”
- Airtime, technically speaking, is a Facebook application. This means that all of your interests, personal info and friends are imported and utilized to make more meaningful connections. Playing around on Airtime you will quickly realize how easily it is to catch on. Initially, after allowing its permissions, you will proceed to your home screen where you can choose to connect with friends on the right hand side of your screen. You can also choose to make new connections with people you haven’t met before. Airtime will select people at random based on their proximity to your location, interests, or mutual friends (friends of friends). This allows for more meaningful and relevant connections between you and other users, which is a stark contrast to the ‘grab bag’ style matchups that occur on Chatroulette. Once Airtime matches you with someone, your common interests will appear between the two video screens. You can review these commonalities anytime during the conversation by clicking the “Airtime” logo that remains onscreen.
- Aside from Pinterest, it feels like blue has become synonymous with the design of social media sites. Airtime, however, is drenched in a rich hunter green. The artwork that welcomes you to the site is retro in feel and the scroll at the bottom keeps you filled in on trending topics as you wander around the site. The style sets Airtime apart from Chatroulette completely.
- Anonymous vs. Added ‘Airtimers’. You will notice that anonymous isn’t all that anonymous when you’re using Airtime. Be careful of your list of interests. Typically as you begin using Airtime you will see that your place of work and list of schools attended pop up at the top of your interests list. This can be viewed by anyone that you connect with giving them the opportunity to narrow down your details with a quick Google search or more likely, by browsing Facebook. Rest assured that by simply clicking on any interest in Airtime will prompt you to remove it. This wont affect anything on your Facebook, so you can delete or add as many interests as you would like without suffering the consequences on Facebook. If at any time you feel you enjoy your conversation enough to add your new friend, simply click the ‘Add+’ button below their screen and wait to be accepted. As they agree to be added, you will see names and locations appear under each video box. We find this to be a fun way to reveal identities to each other. Additionally, adding a new person on Airtime will save any text conversation in the right hand column and they will also be added to your Airtime friend list.
- YouTube integration. Saw a viral video you would like to share? Airtime lets you do just that. The sharing of YouTube videos isn’t a totally new feature, since Google+ Hangouts offers it as well, but one slight difference is that Airtime keeps a thumbnail sized video of you in the top corner while the video is being played on your screen.
- Leave a message. So you’re on Airtime but your buddy isn’t. Don’t worry they can still see your smile and receive your message as soon as they get back to their desk. Airtime will let you leave a video message for anyone on your friends list.
- Less… um…. let’s call it ‘vulgar content’. Perhaps it’s because users are more closely linked to what they’re displaying on their webcam, or maybe it’s because Airtime periodically monitors and captures interactions on the site as a form of content control. Either way I think most of us can agree that the lack of nudity constitutes a sigh of relief from many users. Hallelujah.
- Strong presence of Social Media obsessed, Techies, Programmers and Marketers. While Airtime is available to everyone, it’s not a huge surprise that the first wave of people to check out the site are in the tech industry. So far many users have been impressed with the quality of interaction and conversations they have had on the site. As an added lure to the site, social media heavy hitters like Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker have graced the screens of several Airtime users in the first 48 hours. Whethe these instances were genuine or part of strategy to create ‘hype’ on the site, we think there is a real possibility to meet influential people on Airtime.
- Airtime is seemingly easy to use, but there are one or two things that have us scratching our heads. We assume the answers to these questions will become obvious with continued use, but for now we want to know, what’s up with the ‘point’ system. Between the two video screens there is a button that allows you to award your chat buddy points and visa versa. Once clicked the points will show up as +1’s on your side of the screen and are accumulated in a count at the bottom of your information. You also seem to be awarded points by making new connections. What these points mean or how you redeem these points is still unknown to us, but it’s a nice way to show someone you appreciate them with a fun animated visual.
There’s our humble analysis of the brand new Airtime website. How was your experience?
Want to watch Airtime in action? Click here.
