

Ask Hn: Review needed for my Firefox chat extension  - hinoglu

Hey guys!<p>Two things were really bugging me about online interaction with others. One is closed online communities, where one will need to pay for connecting others, and the other one is web forums, where online meets the "offline and silent".<p>I wrote a firefox extension, where website addresses/domains are simply names of comunication channels to which any user can join and interact with other -alike- visitors while she can continue surfing on the website(s).<p>https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13436/ is the address of my addon. other than that, http://www.visitrs.com/chat/ will provide the same interface, but without the easiness of the plugin.<p>I'd like to have some reviews, though there's not a page that explains the details of the application yet, so i 'd like to be your guide on your journey to my "yet another chat application"
And i'll be doing the main page of the site at the meantime :)<p>Any sugesstions, bug reports are welcome. 
thanks
======
bigbang
Great idea, but I can see few practical problems:

1) It has the same catch-22 problem like dating. Unless there are many users
already chatting on the site Im visiting, theres no point for me to install
this plugin.It maybe better if you target some small segment of people with
similar browsing interests, like people who spend a lot of time in social
networks, youtube etc.

2)<http://www.visitrs.com/> doesnt have any content other than a login screen
and the screenshots on mozilla.org is minimal. Some more screenshots would
help.

3) What will I chat with strangers on a site? or will I even see a list of
users currently willing to chat? Will I see the stream of messages between
other "chatters" like chat rooms?

~~~
hinoglu
thanks you for the feedback, sorry i was to be your guide,but fell asleep
after hours of continuous coding :'(

1 - if user's main interest in it is chatting, then you're right, more people
will grab interest of more people. somewhat similar to chicken-egg problem.
spreading the word will mostly work with people from the closed communities,
where users will need to pay for messaging and stuff.

2 - i was to finish the about page but nature didn't let me stay awake that
much, will do it asap

3 - again this is related to number of people that will see some gain in using
this application. i'll try to promote it and will see how much insterest it'll
grab.

thanks for feedback :)

------
hinoglu
gah! timezone problems(gmt+2)! thanks for the visitors interested in my
application, unfortunately i manage to be sleeping when anyone pings via the
chatrooms :(

by the way, for it's initial release, i'm still fixing the bugs. so any kind
of feedback, bug reports or enhancement requests are more than welcome..

thanks

------
dan_the_welder
I like the rationale you are using. I would like to see the walled garden
broken.

~~~
hinoglu
thanks. using the plugin and spreading the word might help this much ;)

------
bdmac97
socialbrowse.

