
Partying over Internet: Technological Aspects - rumcajz
http://250bpm.com/blog:158
======
snikch
I've been thinking about this too. In fact I've started hacking on an app to
solve this for my group of friends. To me the two primary issues are:

1\. Sub groups without losing the context of the full group. I want to focus
on a set of people and chat with them while also aware of what other groups
are around. I want to be able to bring people into these groups at will. This
also adds a gamification aspect where you can adjust groups, i.e. randomly
mix, mix people who haven't talked to each other yet etc.

2\. Multi monitor. I want to see everyone and real estate is limited on a
single screen. I should be able to add multiple windows or computers to my
chat and have everyone spread across those windows. Only one window / computer
will submit video and audio for me though.

~~~
jvm___
There was a jit.si post on here where someone made a 2d map. If you were
standing close to them on the map you heard the if voice. Further away people
were ignored.

~~~
nitrogen
If I remember right there was an app from the early 2000s that did something
kind of like this. It would be cool to combine the 2D map with a speech-to-
text word cloud over clusters of people so you could see if you wanted to join
another conversation.

~~~
hobs
Mumble has positional audio for game stuff -
[https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Positional-
Audio](https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Positional-Audio) its also extremely low
resource usage and you can install/manage it yourself.

I really prefer it to discord/whatever other voice client because you can also
do stuff like hierarchical broadcasting, a parent channel can broadcast to
children without children broadcasting back.

------
blhack
We’ve been running “dial up dance parties” in Phoenix for the last few weeks.
A DJ streams music to a zoom hangout, and people dance in front of their
camera. The magic bit is that there is a new curation job beyond djing:
curating who is be “spotlighted” at the current time. So my and my wife’s job
(we have been organizing and promoting these parties) is to watch all of the
participants and pick out who should get spotlighted.

It’s been a LOT of fun and has been growing quickly. Our last party had about
40 people in it and every time we do it we know fewer of the people who show
up.

~~~
xenonite
Cool idea! I am fascinated that this is growing. I wouldn't have guessed so in
the first place.

Is there interaction happening between the participants?

> every time we do it we know fewer of the people who show up.

This sounds like the retention rate is low, or is this a wrong conclusion?

Also I would be interested to learn for whom this is fun, and why.

~~~
jakebasile
> This sounds like the retention rate is low, or is this a wrong conclusion?

I think they mean that the percentage of their close friends goes down each
time, as more people are invited. Network effect.

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stagas
There are two types of partying: raving and clubbing.

Clubbing, is for extroverts who enjoy socializing and being on the spotlight.
Clubs have lots of lights, people dress in shiny colors and seek to bring
attention to themselves. Camera sharing is the ideal format for this.

Raving, is for introverts. The setting is dark, people wear black and usually
prefer to be left on their own and focus internally and in the music. It's a
way to enjoy a social situation without being overwhelmed by the crowd.
Avatars and virtual worlds is the ideal format for this.

Of course, I am generalizing here but I'm simply trying to make a point. An
extrovert will not enjoy a setting where they can't draw attention to
themselves. An introvert will not enjoy a setting where being in the spotlight
is the default mode.

Speaking only by my own experience as being an introvert-extrovert and
attending both clubs and raves I can tell you that there is minimal overlap in
the crowds. A different type of people is in clubs and a different type of
people is in raves. Generalizing both as "partying" is confusing, at least.

~~~
drewbeck
Well yes, and actually the OP is about even another kind. The article
references a birthday party, which is more of a general social event vs a
music or participatory/thematic event which is what you’re talking about.
Interestingly, the dance club environment seems easier to elicit online than
the birthday party. The birthday party is all about the social chit chat
dynamics whereas the club environments have a primary focus on the music (even
tho there’s plenty of other interactions as well). Online if you have faces +
music, you have a dance party, or a decent facsimile.

------
drewbeck
Super interesting, thanks!

I’ve been doing zoom teleparties for a few weeks now and they’re really kind
of magical. I started when I had to cancel one of my IRL dance parties and we
thought we’d give it a go. As a meatspace party promoter and DJ i was really
surprised at how successful these are, and how much of the real life party
vibe translates. At our peak we had 160 or so zoom guests and you really felt
that presence!

With the apps we have now social interactions are limited to chat and physical
communication (lots of people will mirror folks’ movements, which is always a
joy). There’s so much you can do.

I’ve got a ton of ideas and sketches for a real online party and event app — a
kind of perfect blend of my UX life and my party life. I’d love to work on it
if I could find some folks with web conferencing experience.

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gfodor
Consider using avatar chat, which has been shown to be able to deliver social
presence, esp w VR.

[https://extendedmind.io/blog/2020/3/20/video-conferencing-
wo...](https://extendedmind.io/blog/2020/3/20/video-conferencing-wont-cure-
loneliness-avatar-chat-apps-can-help)

Example of a house party thrown in hubs:
[https://www.facebook.com/1365390312/posts/10216647011272117/...](https://www.facebook.com/1365390312/posts/10216647011272117/?d=n)

~~~
samename
I’m not familiar with avatar chat, but it does seem VR would solve some of the
problems mentioned in the article (seeing the whole body, meaningful
interactions, side conversations). The problem with VR is it’s not widely used
at the moment. Maybe this will change as a result?

~~~
gfodor
Yep many of the benefits can be delivered without a VR headset (that's part of
the gist of my post) - worth checking out.

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dhosek
A lot of in-person interaction for groups is just not possible with most
(all?) conferencing solutions, e.g., sidebar discussions. Some of this can be
handled through texts (which are an occasional solution in in-person meetings
as well—in grad school, I was occasionally in group texts mocking the person
speaking to our class), although there's the danger that messages might pop up
inopportunely while screen sharing (this happened to a co-worker of my wife's
during a presentation once).

And of course, there's always this: "Leaving your mic on is the new reply-
all."

~~~
rumcajz
Interesting problem. It would be partly solved by the look-and-look-back
protocol, because then it's obvious that you are speaking to a single person.
But then, it could still happen that you accidentally avert your gaze and drop
back to the common chatroom, making what you are saying audible to everyone.

------
bluemooner
I enjoyed this a lot! It identified a problem and explored a couple of aspects
of the solution. It's really fun to think about designing such a product. Even
though there seem to be some technical roadblocks in the way, I would love to
use an app like this!

------
Geeflow
I recently stumbled upon Airmeet[1]. It's not really for birthday parties,
more like networking events. Still, I find the concept intriguing.

They offer a kind of socializing space. It is organized by virtual tables.
Each table holds up to 4 participants via webcam. That way you do not have the
typical issue of large zoom calls where only a few people can talk at a time.
You get a lot smaller conversations much like a real networking event.

They seem to be still starting out, so there are a few issues. But I hope they
iron them out. The concept seems really promising.

[1]: [https://www.airmeet.com/](https://www.airmeet.com/)

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oskenso
I'm really surprised no one has brought up VRChat. Though the hardware
requirement may be a steeper barrier to entry, the software is free (non
libre) and the experience is unlike any other

------
chimprich
What I'd like in an online party platform is a shared social area divided into
conversations you can join. This is for both social bandwidth and network
bandwidth. In real life conversations naturally form and fork off into new
ones.

This needs to be more than just separate channels for it to work well. There
should be some bleeding of audio between adjacent conversations, and maybe
some limited video. I'm thinking perhaps "avatars" of people that get updated
once a minute with their current video feed so you can look around the shared
social area and get an idea of what is going on and have some sort of shared
atmosphere. Maybe a shared background music track?

------
lukeschlather
Zoom's gallery view and pin video solves some of the problems with Hangouts
discussed in the article. I like the idea of somehow building cabaceo into the
app, although I think something simpler might be preferable (E.g. right-click
on person, request to create breakout room.) I think Zoom kind of has this but
it seems like only hosts can create break-out rooms, and they have to turn it
on or something.

~~~
mistermann
[https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-
us/articles/206476093-Getting-...](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-
us/articles/206476093-Getting-Started-with-Video-Breakout-Rooms)

------
danbmil99
There's always Second Life

~~~
jpindar
Or the open source equivalent, Open Simulator.

[https://opensimworld.com/dir](https://opensimworld.com/dir)

[http://opensimulator.org](http://opensimulator.org)

~~~
danbmil99
I should have mentioned that. How is that project going? I wrote the first
physics engine 10 years ago.

~~~
jpindar
It's under active development, including adding features to stay mostly
compatible with Second Life. Bakes on mesh will probably be the next big
feature. Firestorm is probably the most popular viewer. I think BulletSim is
now the default physics engine. There are two grid-independent currency
systems, Podex and Gloebits.

I heard somewhere that there are around 300 public grids, most of which are on
the hypergrid. There are a few significant forks, most notably Halcyon
(created by the late InWorldz LLC) but there are only a handful of grids
running those.

------
cemkozinoglu
[https://catch.social](https://catch.social)

We've been building this ;) will launch soon.

~~~
snikch
Your form didn't work for me :(

~~~
cemkozinoglu
[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/catch-
social/id1482148299](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/catch-social/id1482148299)

Here we go :)

------
aantix
TurnTable Live was out briefly (after TurnTable.fm closed).

I always thought it had a really cool party atmosphere for concerts. Here's a
video of a concert that I took. No audio, unfortunately.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08SvwB9S53U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08SvwB9S53U)

~~~
stagas
TurnTable was awesome! Forgotten about it, thanks!

Edit: didn't know about Live, but the original[0] one, TurnTable.fm with the
avatars was really a fantastic place to be in the Internet. So sad to see it
end, but maybe someone can revive it?

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPCWSL52uVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPCWSL52uVU)

------
fonosip
A party app to fight the virus. [https://ba.net/screen-share-
party](https://ba.net/screen-share-party)

------
arketyp
Imagine if everybody wore head cams. You could end up with complex strange
loops reflecting intimacy and eye contact of an inverted kind.

