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Type of site | Online chat, Avatars |
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Zumbl was an online chat service where users could converse with strangers anonymously. [1] Users could "tag" each other on the basis of their conversations, which were indicative of their personality and were reflected in their avatars. Zumbl built users' pseudo-anonymous identities and matched them with strangers who shared common interests. [2]
The service is now defunct.
Zumbl won Samsung Innovation Awards 2012 on August 9 for the use of sentiment mining technology to find out the users' intent and depict them graphically through the users' avatars. [3]
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology ranging from real-time online chat and online interaction with strangers to fully immersive graphical social environments.
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communities are online communities operating under social networking services.
Yahoo! Messenger was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo ID" which also allowed access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail. The service also offered VoIP, file transfers, webcam hosting, a text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.
Habbo is an online community aimed at teens and young adults. Habbo is owned and operated by Sulake, a Finnish company. Founded in 2000, Habbo has expanded to nine online communities, with users from more than 150 countries. Since August 2012, more than 273 million avatars have been registered with an average of 5 million unique visitors per month.
In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user or the user's character or persona. It may take either a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities or a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds. Avatar images have also been referred to as "picons" in the past, though the usage of this term is uncommon now. An avatar can also refer to a text construct found on early systems such as MUDs. The term "avatar" can also refer to the personality connected with the screen name, or handle, of an Internet user.
Habitat is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by LucasArts. It is the first attempt at a large-scale commercial virtual community that was graphic based. Initially created in 1985 by Randy Farmer, Chip Morningstar, Aric Wilmunder and Janet Hunter the game was made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to AOL. Both Farmer and Morningstar were given a First Penguin Award at the 2001 Game Developers Choice Awards for their innovative work on Habitat. As a graphical MUD it is considered a forerunner of modern MMORPGs unlike other online communities of the time. Habitat had a GUI and large user base of consumer-oriented users, and those elements in particular have made Habitat a much-cited project and acknowledged benchmark for the design of today's online communities that incorporate accelerated 3D computer graphics and immersive elements into their environments.
The Palace is a computer program to access graphical chat room servers, called palaces, in which users may interact with one another using graphical avatars overlaid on a graphical backdrop. The software concept was originally created by Jim Bumgardner and produced by Time Warner in 1994, and was first opened to the public in November 1995.
Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users.
Xfire was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows.
Meebo was an instant messaging and social networking service provider. It was founded in September 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry, and was based in Mountain View, California. Initially the company offered a web-based instant messenger service, extending its offer in more general online chat and even social networking directions. In June 2012, Google acquired Meebo to merge the company's staff with the Google+ developers team.
PlayStation Home was a virtual 3D social gaming platform developed by Sony Computer Entertainment's London Studio for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) on the PlayStation Network (PSN). It was accessible from the PS3's XrossMediaBar (XMB). Membership was free but required a PSN account. Upon installation, users could choose how much hard disk space they wished to reserve for Home. Development of the service began in early 2005 and it launched as an open beta on December 11, 2008. Home remained as a perpetual beta until its closure on March 31, 2015.
BarbieGirls.com was an online virtual world created by Mattel, based on the Barbie brand. It opened on April 24, 2007 and eventually closed June 1, 2011. International versions of the site closed on April 30, 2011. Mattel also released a line of MP3 players that looked like avatars from the website, these devices came with a free VIP membership for the site.
Omegle is a free online chat website that allows users to socialize with others without the need to register. The service randomly pairs users in one-on-one chat sessions where they chat anonymously using the names "You" and "Stranger" or "Stranger 1" and "Stranger 2" in the case of Spy mode. The site was created by 18-year-old Leif K-Brooks of Brattleboro, Vermont, and was launched on March 25, 2009. Less than a month after launch, Omegle garnered around 150,000 page views a day, and in March 2010 the site introduced a video conferencing feature.
Tinychat is an online chat website that allows users to communicate via instant messaging, voice chat, and video chat. It offers instant opportunities for people to meet and the ability for users to create their own virtual chat room on any topic or category. Tinychat is a web-based platform that works on HTML5 compatible browsers or standalone apps for Android or iOS. The chat rooms can contain a rolling maximum of 12 video and audio feeds. Tinychat, including all of its services, is owned by PeerStream.
Chatroulette is an online chat website that pairs random users with a choice between two other users for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website begin an online chat with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection. In February 2010, a few months after the website was created, about 35,000 people were on Chatroulette at any given time. Around the beginning of March, creator Andrey Ternovskiy estimated the site to have around 1.5 million users. According to a survey carried out by RJMetrics, about one in eight spins on Chatroulette yielded "R-rated" content. Parody shows such as The Daily Show and South Park have lampooned this aspect of the service, and nudity has become an established part of the site's notoriety. In spring 2020, Ternovskiy appointed Andrew William Done, Australian tech entrepreneur, as the CEO of Chatroulette. Done has previously founded companies like Simple Machines in Sydney, Australia, and operated as CTO for multiple tech start ups, such as Goodlord in London. Following product changes in spring 2020, and enhanced by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Chatroulette's user numbers have more than doubled between 2019 and 2020. Due to a big relaunch of Chatroulette in June 2020, including new features and a more reliable and modern platform, user numbers are expected to continuously grow.
Fantage was a MMORPG involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by Fantage Inc. The game featured a customizable cartoon avatar, called a "Fantagian", that users can customize with items ranging from hair to clothing and accessories. Fantage was released to the general public on March 17, 2008 and had since expanded into a large online community— the game had over 16 million registered users by January 2012 and over 30 million by December 2014.
ChatON was a global mobile communication service introduced by Samsung Electronics in September 2011. ChatON served more than 120 countries in 62 languages. ChatON was available on Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile (Korea), and Bada smartphones. Additionally, a web client was offered for access to the service via web browsers. Users could invite and register buddies via Facebook and Twitter as well as share ChatON content on Facebook. Among ChatON's unique features were allowing users to create Animation messages, Broadcast to send personal notices in a group chat room, and the Trunk which stores media files shared in chats. When a user logs in ChatON, the user's buddy list is available on any connected device.
Facebook Home was a user interface layer for Android smartphones. Developed by Facebook, the software was designed to be a drop-in replacement for the device's existing home screen ("launcher"). It provided a replacement home screen that allowed users to easily view and post content on Facebook along with launching apps, a replacement lock screen that displayed notifications from Facebook and other apps, and an overlay which allowed users to chat via Facebook messages or SMS from any app. Facebook Home was unveiled at a press event on April 4, 2013, and was released on April 12, 2013 for a limited selection of devices from HTC and Samsung Electronics—including the HTC First, a new smartphone pre-loaded with the software. Facebook is no longer supporting or providing updates for Facebook home.
Vive is a members-only mobile video chat community. The company has offices in San Francisco, Berlin and Hannover. The company's mission statement is, "to provide a safe virtual community where individuals can meet other people to share skills and experiences".
SAPARi was an online 3-D virtual world service developed in Java and ran by Sony. Users could speak to one another and join chat lobbies by using a dedicated server browser called the Community Place Browser. Upon selecting a server, users would appear in a 3-D virtual world as an avatar in the form of a human or an animal. The service's name is a shortening of the name Sampo Park Relaxation. From 1997 to 2001, the service came pre-installed on Sony's VAIO series of computers. The official SAPARi service was discontinued on January 31, 2003.
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