# seennet: an idea for a social networking site around videocalling.

i think i like the idea of having community sites with very specific rules. so here's one idea that i think is optimized for "meeting" people. by "meeting" i mean a 10 minute-ish videocall. this would be a social networking site where you could interact with others only through videocalls.

there are sites like omegle and chatroulette where you can talk with strangers. the problem with them is that you don't really control what happens after the chat: you might feel the whole chat was in vain when a good call ended before exchanging contact data.

in seennet you can access a person's profile only after you've met them and as long as both parties agree to this in a short post-call survey. after getting the consent from both sides, you would become "friends". you would have to regularly meet to maintain the relationship otherwise seennet would break the connection (e.g. after 18 months).

in order to use the site, all you need to configure are the following:

then you would ask seennet to schedule you some videocalls.

simply chatting randomly could be boring and pointless. therefore i'd add a little gamification to all this: another goal on the site would be to "suggest arrangements". suppose you know quite a lot of people and you know a friend of yours would get along with another friend of yours very well but they don't know each other yet. then you enter this suggestion into the system along with a note that explains why they might like each other (e.g. you can mention that they both have the same secret hobby). then if seennet ever schedules a meeting for them they both see your note before the meeting so they know that they have a common friend. that means they are not so stranger after all and given the recommendation they have a good chance for connecting well.

you could compare this system with online dating sites. there you create an online profile, add photos, list interests. then you need to message a lot of people or hope that the right person messages you. if you are introvert who is into introverts then the latter strategy might never connect you up with the ideal partner. you have to invest a lot of energy into this system. in seennet you simply need to show up regularly and after a while you'll start meeting more like minded people without any reliance on any fancy algorithm doing the right thing.

in those dating sites a lot can matter on your profile. in seennet you re-present your profile every time you meet a new person. the first few minutes of your introduction is your "profile", basically. the nice thing about this is that your live "profile" can improve over time because you get constant feedback about it as you see the other people's reactions. you might not be so keen on improving your profile page simply because you have no idea what effect it has on people.

i think this sort of thing could bring together people with many interests not just romantic partners. maybe you are into learning german. every time you introduce yourself, you also tell people that you want to practice german. maybe the other person knows someone who also studies german. they can then add a recommendation with a note like this: "you both like hiking, want to practice german. you should meet!". i think there's less awkwardness with this sort of introductions compared to a meeting with a complete stranger. here at least a friend vouched for the other person, so you should be a bit of at an ease here. and you also have a common topic already, no need to spend a lot of time trying to find it.

another weird example could be nudity. i think it was quite common on chatroulette in its early times and it was usually unwanted by most people. on seennet you would initially appear on the calls clothed but you would mention that you like nude calls. (being clothed in the random calls could be a rule). if a person knows two people who like being nude they can arrange a call between them and the suggestion note could say: "you both want to be nude. have a nude chat!". then you would have the opportunity to go wild with strangers.

there's another psychological aspect here: you can express your weird wishes in an indirect way. in a traditional site with direct connections only you would mostly only experience rejection since the goal is to connect to the other matched person directly. but in seennet your only goal is to listen and note the desires so that you can connect people together. i think the fear of rejection would diminish on a site like this since the other person doesn't really have to like you in order to still rake in virtual points for successful matching.

i think the underlying idea behind seennet is very generic and can easily adapt to a wider range of interests than what typical sites usually have. for instance maybe you are a couple and looking for another couple to play boardgames (or other fun).

you could easily register a "couple" profile and appear as a couple on all videocalls. solo people might mention this couple in their other calls and if there are other people who are interested in some couple fun they could then also register as a couple. that solo person can then arrange a meeting between them. in fact a couple based subculture might appear on the site even without any specialcasing done on the site itself.

i wouldn't allow any messaging on this platform, only videocalls. if you want messaging, just connect on some other platform. i think this limitation would keep things simpler and cleaner.

but what would motivate members to keep suggesting connections? i'd make things a bit more complicated for this. you'll see when somebody suggests you a connection but this in itself won't increase the odds that seennet schedules the suggested meeting for you. in order for it to do that you'd need to "accept" the suggestion. that would increase the odds that seennet schedules its random calls with that person. simply increasing the odds i think is a good defense against spam suggestions. however if the other side also accepts the suggestion seennet pretty much immediately schedules the meeting or tells you that you have a calendar mismatch.

the trick is in the "accepting". you can't accept a connection unless you suggest one before. so basically the site has a currency. you get credit for suggesting. maybe also for someone accepting your suggestions. and accepting suggestions uses up such credit. to limit spam, i'd only allow suggesting one connection per day.

the assumption i'm making here is that people would feel a strong urge to accept suggestions since that's how they can find nice friends. and this urge will then drive them to suggest connections for others.

given that you can only establish new connections through the random or suggested calls, one would be quite invested into their profile. creating a new profile wouldn't give you much since it would take a while to build up a larger network that you could spam effectively. so i think the spam would be somewhat reduced on the site intrinsically. people would be motivated to adhere to the rules otherwise they have a lot to lose (i.e. their network).

another benefit of using such a site is that it takes control of "maintaining" the connections. i'm really bad at this in real life: if somebody doesn't call or write to me then i don't reach out to them. for one, i feel shy and feel that i would be disturbing them if i asked how are things with them. two, i know that such talking usually starts at and often ends at small talk. and i'm really bad and uncomfortable at small talk so i simply avoid it if i can. but if some entity randomly schedules some videocalls then it might help me take care of the anxieties and the scheduling work around this.

i've chosen short online videocalls because they can fit the modern schedule easier and give access to many people very conveniently. i'm sure such things exist in offline world too: e.g. i think there are apps that arrange lunch mates for you so you don't have to eat alone. in such places arranging dates with others might come less naturally so that's why a little gamified site around this could help. also, lunching can be expensive from both time and money perspective, hence i think i'd prefer the low cost videocalls. but i still would want to do it with local people and that's why i'd add the option for geographic filtering into the settings.

i came to this peer powered matchmaking site idea while reading fowler's book called "connected". that book talks about social networks/graphs in general. i really liked the "friend of a friend" aspect: the number of people you are connected through a friend is quite large. and your friend often connects you to another of their friend if they seem that such a friendship would be beneficial. in fact, this is how a lot of romantic relationships get arranged. so then i thought how could one build a network around this and maybe nudge people a little bit to be more active in suggesting. the above is what i came up with.

and these days it's pretty easy to set up videocalls between people using all the browser apis. so i think the implementation of such a site would be relatively simple. although i'm somewhat unsure if peer-to-peer videocalls should be allowed or if the videocalls should go through a central server. i don't know how bad it is to leak ip addresses these days. alternatively i'm sure one could use jitsi for this one way or another.

if such a site would exist, i might try it. maybe one day in my distant retirement i might build it if i still want it and it doesn't exist yet.

published on 2021-01-28

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