There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. — — Steve Jobs
When you call me out of nowhere, I assume you’re thinking:
“I’m going to push myself into your life, right now, no matter what you’re doing. Let me take over your phone screen and interrupt your day. I’m the most important thing right now, talk to ME.”
Really though, it’s crazy that this incessant ringing is still so pervasive in modern society. We have gone so asynchronous in so many ways, but when it comes to synchronous communication, it’s still about one side demanding the attention NOW.
Calling has its place, but it’s not for casual conversations. Why should my desire to chat intrude on your valuable time?
At my job, I help shape (what I believe to be) the best manifestation of the evolution of calling — Houseparty.
Houseparty at it’s core, is a group video chat app. BUT you don’t open and choose who you want to “call”. You don’t send out a calendar invite and arrange a convo hours/days in advance. You don’t even need your friends to be online yet.
Acting on your behalf
You open, we announce your presence to your friends and they show up if they want to. With presence and silent push notifications, Houseparty brings people together when they are physically apart. We do it with a light hand, and by saying you are “in the house.” That phrasing is so incredibly important because it isn’t denoting intention, receivers understand that their friend is online and willing to chat. We want to increase the chance for sponteneity and spur more conversations with more people. As more friends come online, we’ll tell you that too, so you know what you might be missing.
Think about it, how many people are you really going to FaceTime out of the blue on a Wednesday Afternoon? How many people would you love to have a video chat with every now and then? Those two lists are vastly different in both their membership and their size.
Once you’re online
Presence-powered experiences aren’t limited to how you decide who to connect with. While you’re online, your friends will know. And unless you explicitly lock your room, they will know who you’re talking to. Just like real life. If swiping to decide who you might date isn’t weird, neither is swiping between conversations to talk to your actual friends. You can even see when your friends are talking to people you may not know, and if you are so daring, you can jump in and see what’s up.
Make new friends, expand your network because these aren’t just people you might know, these are people you’re now in a conversation with. We call this “Stranger Danger” — named for the way we’re taught to react to new people while young, but in this case, the “stranger” definitely knows someone you’re talking to. It’s actually one of the most realistic interactions on Houseparty. IRL, you’re walking along and see a group of your friends, they’re having a conversation with someone you don’t know, but you go say hi, introduce yourself and maybe even make a new friend. It’s not heavy, it’s not inappropriate (usually), it’s just living life and being social. If you’re friends with at least one person in a room, why shouldn’t you be allowed to join in on the conversation?
Initiation and Obligation: Unnecessary.
Calls are explicitly started by one person, parties are not. A paradigm built on people being present means the lines how conversations emerge are blurry. Blurry in this case, is good, blurry means less obligations to “call” back, blurry means you don’t have to talk to every person, every time. In a world where every single message, screenshot, missed call and read receipt is so in your face, presence and ephemerality makes blurry awesome.
Presence has allowed us to build something fundamentally different at Houseparty. It has enabled a new form of interaction, created new social norms, and brought a whole generation back from SMS and messenger to having real, live conversations. It’s been called the internet’s “third place” and we like to think of it as a living room but at it’s core, it’s a synchronous social network built on presence, and it’s just getting started 🏠🎉.
