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Pedro Gonçalves

[Review] Airtime vs. Chatroulette: The Tamer Social Serendipity that Nobody Really Wants - 0 views

  • Convincing casual social media users that something like Airtime isn't just speed dating is a hard sell. Blame Chatroulette, mid-'90s AOL chat rooms or Grindr, but meeting strangers through technology not for sex still feels inescapably creepy, even when it's cleverly facilitated by an app such as Glancee or Highlight. We like connecting with the people we meet in person after the fact, and even that's hard to make adequate time for. When it comes to video chat with the people we already know, there's no compelling reason to opt for Airtime over a Google+ Hangout, a Skype chat or even a Facetime call. And if you're interested in connecting with friends and family via video to begin with, odds are you've already picked your poison. Sean Parker may want to make Facebook less "boring" by inspiring serendipitous social discovery, but it's hard to imagine that Airtime isn't dead on arrival - there just isn't room for such a diluted blend of existing social tools nor is there the adventurous userbase to adopt them. We have Facebook and Facetime for the people we already know, Twitter and Google+ for the people we want to know and OkCupid and Match.com for the people we want to know, er, intimately. And for the greyer, more "serendipitous" areas? Chatroulette still boasts enough unfettered weirdness for a lifetime.
Pedro Gonçalves

Twitter, Facebook, and Airtime Are Waging War Against The Internet's Stupidity | TechCr... - 0 views

  • Twitter’s re-written Trending Topics algorithm called Tailored Trends is especially clever because it doesn’t directly discourage stupidity, it just funnels it back to people who find dumb things entertaining. Now rather than seeing just the most popular terms and hashtags in your area, you see Trending Topics based on who you follow. So you’ll only see horrible trends like “#UnusualNamesForWhiteGirls” or “#ReplaceBandNamesWithRape” if you follow people that tweet them. Everyone else will get trending topics that don’t make us embarrassed to be human.
  • Facebook’s taking a similar approach to its new apps marketplace. It recommends apps based on what your friends Like and use rather than the oft-misguided wisdom of the masses like Apple and Google’s app store charts. It also highlights apps based on quality, which is calculated according to true engagement, positive reviews, and the absence of spam reports rather than the number of installs. This editorial philosophy could minimize the spread of pointless, spammy, click-bait apps.
  • The big risk of insisting on relevance and safety is that we create a filter bubble where we become isolated from those different from ourselves. Facebook and Twitter need to be especially careful that they don’t completely hide critical Trending Topics or novel apps just because they’re not popular in closed little networks. That might require human input, or an algorithm that recognizes when something’s important enough to show to everyone.
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