Tinychat: The Next Big Thing in Video Chat?

Introduction to Tinychat :

Tinychat was established in early 2009 with the express purpose of creating “disposable chat rooms”.  The concept is basically like the old AOL chat with the ability to set up specialized chat rooms or join a public lobby type area.  Just as with the old chat rooms, Tinychat allows you to set up private chat rooms for a single session to host you and a single friend, or to join a public chat room that hosts up to twelve people simultaneously.

tinychat

Since the time of their original release in 2009, Tinychat has received some serious attention from some unlikely sources in terms of technology venture capitalists.  In early 2011, Ashton Kutcher made a modest financial contribution to the site and began hosting his own video chat sessions through the site.  Soon afterward, Justin Bieber followed suit by making his own financial contribution and setting up video chat sessions for his fans.  Madonna’s agent, Guy Oseary also through his hat in the ring, along with billionaire investor Ron Burkle, and contributed another large chunk of investment dollars.  The last bit of big name promotional sponsorship from Hollywood came from Sean “Puffy” Combs, aka P-Diddy.  With his big name promotion joining the ranks of Bieber and Kutcher, along with a nice bit of cash infusion for  new functionality, Tinychat was on track to be a major contender in the video based social media space.

Tinychat improvements:

Fast forward to 2012.  The app has now gained some major functionality improvements, most importantly full integration into Facebook.  This makes Tinychat, along with ooVoo, positioned to be a major player in the social media video chat revolution.  What seamless Facebook integration means for a video chat application like Tinychat is instant, easy access by thousands of Facebook users.  Unlike Skype, since Tinychat is built in the Facebook web interface, there is no separate app to download.  This removes difficulty in setting up a new video conferencing application, and gives Tinyapp users the ability to easily invite other users in their current social network to take part in Tinychat through their current Facebook pages.

How Tinychat is different?

Tinychat seems to solve some of the issues around making new connections via video applications by anonymous access through its web interface.  Traditional video conferencing sites such as Skype or Google Talk have made it possible for friends, family, and coworkers to connect via video conference, but one of the major opportunity areas in moving video conferencing to the social network is around meeting new people safely through video chat tools.  Chatroulette was an early attempt to solve this issue, with decidedly mixed results.  The chat room concept, however, is a great concept from which to meet new people through video.   A major part of the success of Tinychat in this area has to do with technological maturity.  Given a solid broadband connection, Tinychat can offer a solid video connection to up to twelve other users at the same time, all through their web interface.

How Secure is Tinychat?

Another nice feature of Tinychat is that it offers a secure solution over more traditional video chat applications.  Since the chat is through its central web site, users can log in and chat with anyone around the world with the full expectation that their location is anonymous.  Peer to peer applications such as Skype and Google Talk cannot offer such anonymity, and users connecting to strangers run the risk of having their geographical location compromised.

Tinychat has experienced a steady and significant increase in its user base and chat room activity over the last twelve months.  Along with ooVoo, the Facebook integration may push Tinychat into a lead place in the social video chat space over the next several months and is worth keeping an eye on.

The article is shared by Jason Phillips; an eminent writer and social media enthusiast. He loves to do rounds webcam chat whenever he gets leisure time.