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Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

gather.town

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Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#81

Post by eambutu »

jstrieb wrote: post #5

Congratulations on the launch! Thoughts on competitors like Gatherly? https://www.gatherly.io/

I think all the competitors show that there's a huge need right now, but I don't think anyone's quite got it yet. We're currently far ahead in terms of reliability (used for hundreds of paid events every month) and the level to which you can flesh out your environments, but I'm excited to see what the landscape looks like over the next year!

One I'm personally a huge fan of is Mozilla Hubs (https://hubs.mozilla.com/), which is 3D and VR compatible. It's not accessible enough to people today, but it's very, very impressive!

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#82

Post by eambutu »

alixanderwang wrote: post #14

This is awesome! Love the idea of builder mode being integrated with regular game mode, like Minecraft. I'm not sure what you guys are using for the engine, but the primary feedback I have is that it feels too sluggish. For a second-home virtual space, it'd need to feel really good moving around in it. Right now on my 2019 Macbook, in a one person blank room, I have frame rate drops moving around where my character w…

Thanks for the feedback. Do you have a sense for if this could be network related vs. CPU related? (was your computer fan going off, or is your internet connection spotty?). I agree this is a huge hit to user experience.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#83

Post by eambutu »

AlphaWeaver wrote: post #6

So great to see Gather on HN! I've been following Cyrus, Philip, and Kumail for a while, and been really impressed by their work. I've tried Gather and a few of the other competitors out there - out of all of them Gather nails the UX the most. It's pretty simple, but it's also powerful. Most of the other competitors in this space have thrown together a sloppy "business" platform, but Gather just feels much more acces…

Thanks! I remember you reaching out in the early days of Online Town, good to see you again here!

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#84

Post by alexlchen2019 »

ModernTabulator wrote: post #78

I see you guys are using p2p webrtc, and it looks like there is there no media router? Because webrtc can't do a 3-way handshake, traffic will be N^2 as more people join a conversation. Why didn't you guys use a server-side Selective Forwarding Unit or Multipoint Conferencing Unit architecture?

Hey there, thanks for checking us out! We actually are using an SFU architecture instead of P2P :)

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#85

Post by alexlchen2019 »

revalo wrote: post #68
eatonphil wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and other links look great, and more natural/simpler than the 2d board. But gatherly doesn't seem ready to serve my family and I if I have to request info (I can't just sign up). What's the best, simple app like this that allows easy subconversations that my family, parents, other non-technical folks could easily join? I don't mind paying to host but it has to be easy for them to log in and use.

I run a completely free service https://firemeet.io Though I think gather's UX is actually very friendly to non-technical people!

hi revalo <3 miss you hope the other coast is treating you well

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#86

Post by eambutu »

tmhrtly wrote: post #52

I used gather as part of a social gathering with my university cohort and enjoyed it. Only oddity for me was one situation where a group of 3 of us had the person in the 'middle' hearing both, but the two on the outside could only hear or see the middle person. We tried expanding the 'circle range' thingy but then could hear the conversation happening across the room. I wish there was some way to make that whole proc…

Was there a reason that, in this case, you couldn't all walk closer to each other? We additionally have "private spaces" you can set up so that everyone in that area can see/hear each other: https://gather.town/features#feature-private-spaces . People often use this so that they can sit down on chairs and talk to only the other people at the table.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#87

Post by eambutu »

screye wrote: post #38

Aww man, I've been ideating around this exact idea for MSFT teams for a while now. (not like I had any time or buy-in for it) BRILLIANT. There is always a faint sense of jealousy and vindication when I see an idea being executed so close to what a person has been pushing for. Congrats ! I think you're onto something. I would readily pay for this if I could get my entire team to adopt it. (which I'd say is nearly impo…

Thanks so much! Curious why you think it would be nearly impossible to get your team on it?

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#88

Post by eambutu »

catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #26

I've used online.town before, and it's awesome to see that it's productized now with a lot of the features I wished. We used if for company gatherings and played games like hide and seek, and as a way to network with new people. The fact that things like podiums can now project voices, games are included, really make this so much more appealing. It's just a fun way to connect with people. Including random people. And…

Thanks! We've been working very hard, and it's come a long way since then :)

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#89

Post by knowtheworld »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #79
knowtheworld wrote: post #77

This super cool!! And very similar to the ideal online meetings should be for me. I even made a video to describe this online interaction problem. https://youtu.be/q6zM1wn0dTs Good to see someone solving this hard problem!

I've never seen someone publish something that way, (in a video with storyboard art visuals) I think it was a really effective way to demonstrate the issue and your idea.

Haha thanks! It took me some time to make that anime. I didn't get too much traction when publishing it. Good to know someone likes it!

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#90

Post by rkda »

munfred wrote: post #66
eambutu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up a really point here, and it's something we haven't spent nearly enough time on. What are the kinds of body language that you think are really important in real life, that make it easy to break into a conversation?

I have a suggestion to make on this regard, not related to body language. In scientific conferences, typically at the end of the day (e.g. after dinner, with drinks) you have "poster presentations". These presentations look pretty much like these images from Google [0]. Everyone goes to a big room, and the presenters stand in front of their posters which are ~90x120cm. People walk around looking at the poster titles…

#1 is already supported. Gather actually has a poster object for this purpose. You might want to check out the conference demos.
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