Loudtalks

We decided that it would be cool to nominate Loudtalks for one of The Crunchies awards.

If you think we deserve it, please support us by clicking on that cheesy round button on the left and entering “loudtalks” into “Best Bootstrapped Start-up” category. You may nominate us into different categories as well :)

Thanks!

This is a second iteration of Deepwell experiment. The previous one (the attempt to use it as a test contact) was unsuccessful and resulted in a bunch of support emails, which sounded nearly schizophrenic: “…sometimes I hear voices, how do I hear myself?”

We let “echo” do what it’s supposed to do and moved Deepwell robot over to “voices” username. After a little modification now it could be used to meet new people in quite unusual way.

Here is how to use it:

1. Add “voices” to your contacts
2. Select “voices” in your contacts list, push F7 button and speak something about yourself for 5-20 seconds.
3. Release F7 button and hear the message from another user, which will be randomly picked up from the queue.
4. Watch the status line as it tells you, who was the author of the message you are hearing
   
5. If you like, what you hear, add the user to your contacts and as soon as he approves your request — you can talk!
6. Repeat steps 2-5 until as necessary :)

Since this feature is experimental and just launched you might notice that there are few messages in the pipeline. That’s normal and if anybody will find it useful, there will be many more interesting people to meet there soon!

(update 11/6/2007: Based on feedback from users, we replaced “DeepWell” build with a normal echo, which repeats back whatever you say to it. DeepWell moves over to “voices” username)

Today we launched the first bot in Loudtalks network. It’s name is “echovoices” and it’s added to all new users’ contacts automatically. You can add or remove it manually too.

The first purpose of this bot is to help users testing Loudtalks themselves before inviting friends. It does that in somewhat unusual way. The best way to experience “DeepWell” project is to login to Loudtalks, add “voices” to your contacts and tell something to it.

If you just want a spoiler here is what it does.

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