Web Video Chat room?

So the idea is really cool, a chat room with friends, strangers and whoever wants to join in your chat room. You could have a meeting. You could broadcast a concert. Tons of options and ideas. Sounds cool. I liked listening and seeing friends try this out. Everyone was super nice welcoming people into the chat. The main page on the Y!live broadcasts a channel so that anyone can join into a room. You get your own “channel” with your screen name. You can only view a total of 4 people in your “tray” at the bottom of the page. Again all pretty cool. Plus, I am always checking to see if there is a privacy setting to not be searched, they do offer that too. Phewww. :)

So getting online was pretty easy (I have a Macbook Pro so it had a web cam built in already). I clicked on the “Go Live” button and I was broadcasting.
The Audio was a bit of a pain. My friends couldn’t hear me so I had to go to “Edit Settings” and select the sound. It should be automatic shouldn’t it?

Matthew Oliphant was online and it was fun. I hooked up my TV to and mirrored the screen so it was like a TV station. I even pulled up the weather as a joke to do the weather channel behind me.

Con

I know you were waiting for the BUT....
its cool to be on video but the negative is that people who choose not to be on video can hide. The web is great at allowing anonymity.  The night I was chatting with Matthew Oliphant, it was getting a bit too late (east coast vs pacific time zone) so I went to my own channel.

The later it got the weirder it got. Some guy decided to show us Tarot cards and for some reason he only wanted to show us the death cards. The guy was playing Final Fantasy and was from Pennsylvania. That’s all the info we got from talking to him.

A person logged on while Marianne Masculino and I were on my channel wrote, “How can you see with those slants?” I gave them a moment of .. no they didn’t just write what I think they wrote. I said on video, “that’s not very nice.” The person then proceeded in saying, “what do Chinese name their kids?” I looked at Marianne and hit the ban button. Thank god for that.
Stupid people disappoint me immensely.

Pro

• I got to meet some guy that was in Taiwan teaching English there for the past two years so that was cool.
• I met Matthew Oliphant in real time vs via Twitter or flickr.
• try out a new app
• giggled a lot
• played weather girl

Overall

Pretty cool. Tips, have something to talk about or you end up putting silly costumes like a Queen Amidala headdress, Darth Vader Mask or go through a collection of sunglass options on the camera.. or even just become two giggly girls (if you drag Marianne into it of course :P ).

Just watch out for stupid people.