

Chatroulette for text messages - mayop100
http://randtxt.com/

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oniTony
Yup, just like chatroulette

    
    
        Message received from 858-XXX-XXXX at Sun Apr 10 2011 21:59:46 GMT+0000 (UTC) 
        What nonsense do you speak of? The humanity!
        Reply received from 724-XXX-XXXX at Sun Apr 10 2011 22:28:29 GMT+0000 (UTC) 
        8========================D

~~~
duck
Am I the only one that would be a little worried about posting anything on
here knowing that the X's could be removed at any point and thus the next
(person|boss|gf|friend) to search my cell number would get to see my 'witty'
response?

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MikeW
Lissn.com reminds me of a far more polished "chatroulette for text" except I
was able to talk to a lady in Japan for half an hour about the recent tragedy
on Lissn, and I didn't have to disclose my cellphone number to anybody or get
billed for using the service.

~~~
lissn
Thanks for the post! Our goal is to create the best conversation platform for
having good conversations, so if you had (or lissned to) a good conversation,
we have done our job. :)

I've talked with people from Egypt during their protests, Libya during their
conflicts and Japan after their quake. It's been a sporadic, fun initial
community (currently the site is taken over by people from Taiwan).

We're releasing a new feature each week based off user feedback. It's been
interesting, as our plan has changed by the week. Started with an MVP,
listened to the customer & building out. Hope to see you guys around lissn :)

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orenmazor
I built this a few months ago on twilio as well, and spent a massive amount of
time trying to dispel the "chatroulette for ____" angle :)

my initial testers all got nailed with $30+ cell phone bill increases because
Twilio only has american numbers. and canadians can't text american numbers
for free anymore.

if anybody wants the code, it's built in django and I own www.texted.in with
it (currently down since djangy is going away)

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blantonl
cellphone providers all over the world are now scrambling to make absolutely,
unequivocally sure that this goes viral.

~~~
jrockway
And as a result, it's virtually guaranteed to die out within about three hours
of this happening.

(Has any big company ever succeeded in making something "go viral"? All I can
think of is that "I'm on a horse" series of ads on YouTube. Ironically, I
can't remember what they were selling. Old Spice?)

~~~
cubicle67
pretty sure the one I saw had Grover on a horse

[Edit: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkd5dJIVjgM> ]

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hugh3
Oh hooray, now I can pay ten cents a pop for what I used to hate getting for
free!

~~~
kgermino
Wait, who do you have that it's only ten cents?

~~~
montibbalt
Get a Google Voice number and it's free ;)

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corin_

      Message received from 479-XXX-XXXX at Sun Apr 10 2011 22:26:23 GMT+0000 (UTC)
        I'm from England!
      Reply received from 626-XXX-XXXX at Sun Apr 10 2011 22:29:32 GMT+0000 (UTC)
        I am fasting, but it's not going very well.
    

If only Twilio would support international messaging by default so I could
have got that reply, and had a message to reply to.

~~~
tedsbardella
It seems to me like the responses are not in order - you probably got a
response to someone asking about an Orthodox Christian fast that is going on
now.

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blantonl
I never, ever participated in Chartoulette, but for some odd reason I
immediately tested this out.

And, I have to admit - it's a winner.

It's like the Cracker Jacks of text messaging. Every text is a winner...

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ipince
I think many people are confused and don't quite understand which message they
should be replying to.. perhaps it'd be better to have 2 numbers? One for
starting an exchange and one for completing them..

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frankdenbow
i believe there was textslide that did something similar. Will try it out!

~~~
mhunter
you would be correct. textslide is still alive and well:
<http://textslide.com>

<http://mashable.com/2010/10/26/textslide/>

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shazow
Very cool application of Twilio!

I'd feel more comfortable trying it if my SMSs weren't publicly displayed.

Although I did just upgrade my SMS plan to 1,000... Hmm.

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ithayer
would be cool if it supported mms.

~~~
eoghan
This road can lead only to an increase in the presence of penises in MMS
messages.

~~~
jrockway
Maybe if enough 8-year-old kids get these messages, the carriers will finally
do something about TXT spam.

