Drop-in voice rooms with a live transcript

Rooms, not calls

In many apps a call rings, people accept, and the call ends. A room has no such ritual. It exists in the server, people come and go, and whoever is there is talking. That fits communities far better: a late-night drawing room, a study hall, a place where people work next to each other and chat now and then.

Joining and leaving quietly

The design removes the social cost of entering and exiting.

• Joining does not play a fanfare or notify the whole server.
• Leaving needs no explanation; there is a button called Leave quietly.
• You can listen without speaking, and mute yourself with one click.
• The room shows who is in it before you join, so you know what you are walking into.

A live transcript beside the audio

As people speak, short lines of text appear in the room view. They let you follow the conversation where you cannot play sound, such as a library, an office or a train, and they help anyone who finds spoken conversation hard to follow in real time.

The transcript is for following along. Whether and how a room's transcript is kept afterwards is a setting the server owner controls, and the default will be stated clearly.

Seeing who is talking

A small marker lifts the avatar of the current speaker. It shows who is talking without taking over the screen or flashing, which keeps a room with many people readable.

How a room differs from a call

A call has a start, a ring and an end, and everyone is expected to be there for it. A room has none of that. It stays open, people come and go, and nobody is notified that you have walked in unless you want them to be. That removes the small social cost of joining, which is often the reason people do not.

The room is also designed to be a text space. The live transcript scrolls beside the audio, so someone who cannot turn their sound on can still follow along, and someone who joins late can read the last few lines to catch up before speaking.

What we are still working out

Rooms raise questions that we would rather ask now. How many people can talk at once before it stops feeling like a room? Who can see that a room is occupied, and who can see who is in it? How should a moderator close one that has gone wrong? Each answer affects how safe and how quiet the room feels.

None of these have final answers. When they do, they will appear on the moderation page and on the blog, and this page will be updated with the date. Until the app is released, everything here is a plan.

Good fits

Hobby communities with regular hangouts, study groups, creative circles that work in parallel, and friends who want a room that is always there when someone feels like company.