Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

My Galaxy has this "feature". For some reason it's recently started to occasionally call or text a different person to the one I selected. Hilarity ensues. I call it the "iPhone Shuffle".

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#5

Post by samstave » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 1:45 AM UTC

Absolutley no interest in being connected with a random via voice. I cant stand to talk on the phone to anyone as it is...

I am sure there is a wide swath of youth though who would think this is fun/funny... I just cannot say that they would have anything in common with myself.

You know what would be an interesting pivot on this though;

ServiceRoulette:

You need a service - and you have the system connect you randomly with that service over the phone. Afterwards - you rate your experience and the connected service gets a weighting.

This could be used for reservations, support, plumbers, whatever - where the people need a service and there are lots of options to choose from.

You seed the service with info from sites like Yelp weighting the connection based on proximity to the caller and the positive reviews on Yelp.

They basically put their service order in on a page and receive a call from the provider.

They could set a "ill pay X for Y service" sort of thing as well...

Anyway, jsut being randomly connected to a creep for voice chat just seems like a waste of energy...

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#6

Post by alecco » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

Blind people would likely appreciate it. Why don't you forward this to some schools for the blind?

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#7

Post by antidaily » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

Funny. Hell no im not trying it.

fyi, there is an Omegle iphone app.

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#8

Post by antidaily » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

Funny. Hell no im not trying it.

fyi, there is an Omegle iphone app.

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#9

Post by chefsurfing » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 2:03 AM UTC

Just like chat roulette... mostly dudes.

Re: Show HN: We built Callroulette, a chatroulette for phones

#10

Post by jericsinger » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 2:13 AM UTC

If you read through, this actually has a super interesting purpose. From the site:

>Why are we doing this?

Our research group is interested in the use of technology for development. We are building a low-cost, low-power cell phone base station platform for deployment in underserved areas. Once you set up your own cell phone tower, you can do a lot of cool things, like run a chatroulette service.

In this particular project, we are studying how choice and context affect the quality of online interactions. We will be deploying this service in a small isolated cell phone network at an upcoming event where we expect to have several thousand users. We're hoping the Internet can help us test how our system performs under load before the real deployment so we can work out all the bugs.