Meatspace: friendly, open chat that uses GIF-loops from your webcam instead of emoticons


Noah Swartz writes, "We live in what is now being hailed as the social media age. Every news article, blog post, or landing page is replete with links to various networks like Twitter or Facebook. More often than not these networks serve to wrap us in our own bubbles, rather than really giving us an experience akin to socializing in person via the Internet."

That's what @ednapiranha's chat.meatspac.es does so stunningly well. The concept is simple, a single chat room with no login, no user names, and no default identity – just the ability to post 2 second clips from your webcam along with
each of your messages.

These GIFs get displayed alongside the chat and for the first time ever allow text chat to be truly emotive. Think about it, you'll never need to clarify sarcasm, worry about if your apology will come off as sincere, or type 'lol' ever again. Instead you can just make the expressions that come naturally to you and share them along with your text.

Since its debut, it has forged friendships between hundreds of people around the world, sparked 'meat-ups' and relationships, and, thanks to ednapiranha's dedication to keeping the source open to developers, brought in many collaborators who have made their own projects: ranging from bots to automated digests to fashion brand inspired t-shirts.

The community has coalesced into a group who values the welcoming of 'newbros' over all else. So the next time you take a coffee break from work, or reach for your Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit feed, consider popping in to chat.meatspac.es to say hi.

Meatspace

(Thanks, Noah!)