
Show HN: Chatible – Anonymously Chat with Strangers in Facebook Messenger - zaytoun
http://www.chatible.io/
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zaytoun
Hey HN, Chatible is a project I've been working on this past week. I wanted to
explore the idea of using bots to connect humans together. I'd love any
feedback.

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andrewclunn
A couple quick questions:

Does it require a Facebook account to use?

If so are my chats stored for later reference?

Is it text only?

Is it regional for connections, so I won't be paired with somebody from a
different country?

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zaytoun
1) It requires a Messenger account. (I believe FB decoupled FB and Messenger
recently)

2) We don't store any messages on our backend.

3) We support text and stickers.

4) It's not regional. We pair you with random people throughout the world.
However, if there's a demand for regional pairing, we will explore that as
well.

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justinlardinois
For #1 all I know of is that Facebook and Messenger are separate mobile apps
now. There's still just one kind of Facebook account.

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gtremper
You can use Messenger without a Facebook account (just your phone number I
think).

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dalerus
This. Only need your phone number to use the Messenger app.

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ruler88
It'd be interesting if you could connect humans who share an interest
together. I feel like platform need to direct and steer the human
conversations.

~~~
zaytoun
Yeah, I agree. We've already implemented that functionality, but right now
we're brainstorming ways to roll it out without clunky UI. We want to keep it
extremely simple to use for now.

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iamdave
Share this dev approach with Facebook proper and MAYBE I'll come back to the
site.

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vortico
I'm surprised how easy it is to set up, since I already have the Facebook
Messenger app on my mobile device. I actually thought it was am official
Facebook service for a minute.

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overcast
Neat, though I fear you've created an easy way for spammers to "connect" with
people anonymously. How do you plan on dealing with bots using your bot?

~~~
zaytoun
Yeah, that's a reasonable concern. We haven't yet implemented anything to
avoid spam, but that has been on our todo list. We have been thinking about
giving users the ability to flag an account after their conversation ends.
Maybe implement some sort of penalty system.

~~~
vortico
It's somewhat difficult to create tons of new Facebook accounts, so you can
ride off this perk of Facebook to handle spam yourself. Flagging conversations
is a good idea, so after three or so flags, you can automatically ban the
account, and I think that would auffice.

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justinlardinois
So basically Omegle, but implemented on Facebook?

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maxpert
Not exactly :P Omegle had some chat servers of it's own but this one doesn't
even need that :P it just has to relay messages hiding info

