Talk about an eavesdropper’s paradise: Stickam.com, a new social networking site, enables users to participate in live, multiway videoconferencing. Most rooms are public, and when you visit the site there is no requirement to broadcast either your image or voice or give your real name.
The idea for Stickam is simple: Without having to pay a dime or install any sketchy software, you can fire it up and start a face-to-face-to-face chat. All you need is a decent broadband connection and, of course, a Web cam. More audacious souls “go live”–Stickam lingo for enabling your Web cam. A small window will appear in your browser with a video of you–What else?–staring at a video of you in your browser.
At this point, an important distinction should be made. When you stream live video, you are not broadcasting yourself to the whole world or even anyone with a computer. Your audience is limited to the people who have entered your chat room. But before you and a friend reenact that scene from “Borat,” keep one thing in mind: With the right software, anyone can record video from Stickam at any time–and people do.
Intriguing as it is at first, the novelty of access to a mother lode of video chats does begin to wear off fairly quickly, especially if you don’t feel like listening to bored teenagers–“I’m bored,” being an oft-heard Stickam complaint–speculating about such things as why “they’re taking the word ‘the’ out of superhero movie names”–“Hulk,” “Fantastic Four,” “X-Men.”
Luckily, Stickam offers more than just chat. A number of entertainers have established outposts here.
One music group is trying to take video chat to yet another level. Story Told, a ragtag crew of twentysomething indie rockers who also produce a reality series for YouTube, has installed a 24-hour Web cam in its Sunnyvale, Calif., living room, allowing for a constant conversation between band members and fans. Their camera and computers were part of a sponsorship deal with Stickam, one of several the company has pursued with various young artists and musicians.
Lead singer Loren Groves makes no apology. “It’s all product awareness,” he said by cell phone, stepping away from his day job at a Silicon Valley dot-com. “It has nothing to do with that song you wrote last Tuesday. You have to market yourself, period.”
There are potential problems with Stickam, however. It hits a trifecta that has made some parents nervous: It’s new, it’s free, and it allows users to remain anonymous. So there has been some worrying in the press about whether the site is “a magnet for sexual predators.” Some Web experts say there’s a danger. Others say the kids are all right.
