Greetings, thats a very cool aim you have, a great use for online video :) I hadnt heard of whistlebox before, the technology sounds right but it seems to me that they are looking for a different sort of customer, more corporate advertising type stuff so Im guessing their pricetag will be wrong.
I am assuming you mean non-live conversations, as there are a lot of fairly eas to use live webcam chat systems out there. >From a technical point of view, there should theoretically be alternatives to whistlebox. They are making use of Flash, and Flash Media server is the technology that enables the 'record straight from your webcam to the site' stuff which seems appealing from an ease of use perspective. Flash is used by tons of sites these days, yet not so many are making use of the recording side of things, due to the extra server requirements. This creates extra cost for the service provider, But its certainly not rocket science, so whistlebox shouldnt be alone in this space. If it is alone right now, it wont be for long. Youtube certainly does this stuff for its 'respond via video' feature, but isnt suitable for you as you probably want something that can truly fit ino your site and be seperate from the main site. Especially as the sensitive nature of the discussions means you are playing it safe so far in terms of controlling your community, keeping it fairly closed for now. Anyway sorry for not acctually providing a solution, I have a feeling I should know about some alternative services but my minds gone blank here, well it is 2.37am here in the UK, I'll have another think tomorrow if nobody else has come up with anything Cheers and good luck with your interesting project, please do let this group know how your mission goes in future. Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "marileetaussig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I have been looking for something that allows for easy conversation via > webcam (for non-techies) and this seems to be the only application that > offers the ease that most regular (non vloggers require) > > You can see it in action at > http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/index.php/2007/05/24/welcom-to-whi\ > stlebox/ > > <http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/index.php/2007/05/24/welcom-to-wh\ > istlebox/> > They (at > http://development.whistlebox.com/dveg/WhistleBETA/default.jsp)describe > it as "instant user-generated video and webcam social networking" but > are pretty short on details > > Does anyone have any experience with it? > > Does anyone know anything else about it? (like how much it costs?) > > Thanks > > HI, I am relatively new to this list but have been trying to use video > to build bridges across culture for several years. You can find out > more about my work by going to www.ahhah.org <http://www.ahhah.org/> . > which is a beta site dedicated to cultural understanding via face to > face conversations on the web. > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >