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FlyByChat = IRC + Web 2.0. Feedback appreciated.

25 points| bdr | 15 years ago |beta.flybychat.com | reply

19 comments

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[+] mdisraeli|15 years ago|reply
Mibbit: I don't have to create an account Meebo: I just have to log in with my existing accounts (then there's also meebo rooms)

Also, the fact that the title flashes about new messages when I've just opened the tab and there are new things in the default chats is annoying. I didn't choose to receive the messages, after all.

[+] icco|15 years ago|reply
Seems like a decent idea, but showing up to the site, I didn't really understand what the point of the site was. The hn title made sense, but the site doesn't seem to explain that well; nor does it explain to me why I should use it instead of IRC. (It also never finished "loading", I assume that's just a js error though).
[+] bdr|15 years ago|reply
Thank you. Re: IRC, the answer is that I'm trying to address a different market. IRC is great for us nerds. But there's no good mass consumer version at the moment, and that's what I'm going for.
[+] avar|15 years ago|reply
Does it use IRC on the backend? This is a nice UI, being able to set it up with a custom IRC server would be very nice.

Another cool feature would be the ability to embed a chat window on another website.

[+] bdr|15 years ago|reply
No, it's not actually IRC, just web-based chatrooms. That comparison has caused some unnecessary confusion. Embeddable is coming soon.

The problem with making a web-based interface to IRC is that you're liable to get blocked like Mibbit.

[+] mdisraeli|15 years ago|reply
The big challenge you have isn't appealing to a different market than traditional IRC. That one is the easy problem to solve.

The hard bit is getting critical mass. Without enough people logged on and chatting, no one new would stay logged in and chatting. As it's only text based, there's none of the voyerism that chatroulette offered in return for sticking with it.

[+] bdr|15 years ago|reply
I completely agree that the hard bit is getting critical mass. I don't think video is necessary: there's already a proven demand for text-based chat, which is much larger than ChatRoulette's.
[+] markstahler|15 years ago|reply
I really like it and can appreciate the technical aspect but I was really hoping for a web enabled IRC client that didn't require me to connect over port 6667.

I would use a web enabled IRC client every day. Crap, maybe you just gave me an idea for my next project.

[+] MatthewRayfield|15 years ago|reply
http://www.mibbit.com/ does this.

But when I last tried it I couldn't get onto Freenode and my guess is that their IPs are blocked on a lot of networks.

[+] jarin|15 years ago|reply
I like that it suggests rooms to create based on your Facebook interests. Creepy, but awesome.
[+] Sephr|15 years ago|reply
It'd be nice if it supported OpenID.