
Tiny Talk: like ChatRoulette, with your friends - douq
https://tinytalk.io
======
douq
Hey there!

Introducing a little quarantine side project I've been working on: Tiny Talk.

Tiny Talk is basically ChatRoulette, but with your friends. The goal: to bring
back social serendipity :)

Here's how it works: sort your contacts into groups (friends, family, work,
etc.) -- or block a contact to prevent a match (other users won't ever know if
you block them). Then, from time to time, you'll be invited to join a
randomly-coordinated, 7-minute video chat with one of your approved, eligible
contacts (or you can initiate a Tiny Talk to kick off the random matching
process). Tiny Talks are double-blind, so neither you nor the person you
connect with will know who the other is until you've both opted into the
conversation. The only requirement is that you've both sorted one another into
groups other than "Block". When the seven minutes is up, that's it! Need more
time? Just call / FaceTime them back.

Tiny Talk is meant to be low-commitment (hard cap of 7-minutes), low-risk
(pre-sort contacts + double blind matching) and fun (who's ready to break up
the monotony of 9 to 5 Zoom?)

Available for iOS on the Apple App Store and Android on Google Play. Landing
page / more info on the Tiny Talk site:
[https://tinytalk.io](https://tinytalk.io).

If you do check it out, definitely share any/all ideas and feedback!

~~~
XCSme
I don't understand why would I use this? It just feels that I register to
something that might randomly pop-up meetings/calls with people I know? I
personally don't like unexpected calls in general or calling someone without
having anything to tell. It feels that if I register I would just make my life
harder with no benefit in return (I can already talk with whoever I want and
contact them if I feel like it).

~~~
douq
It's a great question -- we actually address that specifically in the FAQ on
our site: [https://tinytalk.io/faq](https://tinytalk.io/faq) ("... another
social network app? Wait but why?").

The basic emotion we're hoping to leave our users with is that feeling you get
when a friend you haven't talked to in a while calls you out of the blue, just
to say hi and see how you're doing. We wanted to lower the barrier for those
types of exchanges, where in Tiny Talk, getting to that is as simple as
pushing one button. In addition to making it dead simple, we keep the
interactions low-risk (sort those of your contacts who are registered on Tiny
Talk via a Tinder-style swipe workflow), and low-commitment (conversations are
seven minutes - when time is up, it ends - no run on convos).

Concretely, the value prop we hope to deliver (which we've so far gotten good
feedback on from our first few dozen users) is creating a fun, low-commitment
way to have the sorts of social run-ins you might expect to have when walking
around your neighborhood, hanging at the park, walking the isles of your local
grocery store, which are more limited during COVID quarantine days. It's not
about replacing those interactions, just giving people a bit more 1:1
connectedness when they might not necessarily have an agenda or reason to call
one another, but would enjoy the run-in nevertheless.

If you do end up trying it out, would love to hear any feedback!

~~~
XCSme
Thanks for the explanation! I think my question was not clear enough.

From the app description, it feels like using this would make my life worse in
every way, not better. I can't really imagine a moment in my day when
receiving a notification from TinyTalk would be nice to see. The best part
about the random friends saying hi is exactly that, they are random and they
thought about you, not because an app told them to. I do think this might work
with strangers instead (but then it will just be like ChatRoulette).

I wish you luck with your project, but I honestly don't think it can work with
the current pitch. I think people want fewer commitments and notifications in
their life, not more.

~~~
douq
Marking XCSme as "probably not a user" :)

Appreciate the skepticism -- I'd challenge you to try it and let me know,
although obviously if the value prop I laid out doesn't resonate, it's
probably not worth the effort for you. Will let you know how it shakes out!

------
bg51
Looks cool!

