

Toka (2015): A Chatroom's Response to Facebook - Jihoon
http://toka.io/chatroom/PKi1vDzkTp_

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Jihoon
Toka is a chatroom-based community that I've been working on for a couple of
weeks with a friend.

We could actually talk at great length about the ideology behind our project,
but we'll save you the trouble/time. Right now, all we want to do is make
something that you might find fun or useful. You can either join the premade
Hacker News chatroom, or venture out and create your own. You can also invite
your friends - the more the merrier (well, until everything crashes because of
traffic).

So feel free to leave us feedback, and we'll take your thoughts into
consideration!

*You'll have to sign-up first before you can use Toka. Also, you are limited to creating just 1 chatroom so far - but we'll make updates soon :)

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thekodols
I'd actually really love to hear about the ideology.

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Jihoon
Toka is a chatroom-based community.

It is based on the following 3 principles: 1.) With 2 billion people connected
to the Internet, meeting people online with similar interests should totally
be easier 2.) The social taboo against making friends online is outdated 3.)
Chatrooms allow people to connect with others in a way that’s not possible
through content-driven sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit are driven mostly by user-generated content.
Users post things like statuses, photos, and comments – social interaction is
then derived from this activity.

However, we think that there is too much emphasis on content rather than on
the social interaction behind it. A karma system encourages this – the “like”
or “upvote” functions have effectively turned the act of posting into a
popularity contest, since the people who accrue the most amount of likes or
upvotes are the ones deemed as popular. This leaves little room for actually
building relationships.

So what does it mean to be “social” on the internet? Is being social on the
internet even a desirable thing? We think that being social on the internet
means exactly the same as it’d mean in real life – making new friends and
keeping up with the friends you already have. Over time, you might drift apart
from some friends, or you might grow closer to others. But considering how
many people are on the internet now, it’s crazy that there isn’t a system to
make the social process easier.

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japhyr
With 17 points in 40 minutes, any idea why this isn't on the front page? /new
has more posts with more than 1 point than it normally does.

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Jihoon
I'm not sure? I'm honesty surprised at how active people are still. Would be
cool to get on front page though, but not likely

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jonaselkersen
is this like a modernized version of IRC then? good luck, looks great so far
:)

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smedegaard
agreed - not sure if this is anything other than IRC with a GUI

