Pop founder here. We’re a team of 5, and folks from our team have built products like Screenhero, Slack Calls, and most recently, Screen.so.<p>Pop lets you have a video call in 3D, with positional audio. It works in a browser, without any download. The experience is surprisingly fresh, and the social dynamics are quite fun.<p>You can feel like you’re part of a group, you can see who’s looking at you, you can go to the side with someone and have a separate conversation, without interrupting the current conversation. You can share a screen that floats in space (and always faces the viewer). You can even bow to say hello!<p>We use Mediasoup for the WebRTC backend, Ionic/Angular for the frontend, and BabylonJS as our 3D framework.<p>Also, as an experiment, we’re hosting a virtual launch party at [EDIT: 6 hours later, and we're done! Thanks to everyone who came by!].<p>Happy to answer any questions here too, of course!<p>Edit: there are more screenshots here: <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pop-9" rel="nofollow">https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pop-9</a>
Your homepage doesn't explain anything about what I should do when I land on it.<p>What's a space? What's going to happen if I create or join one?<p>Why would I want to do this?<p>Or is this intentional and you're soft-launching or just doing some testing?<p>edit: I clicked create a space and you immediately ask for access to my camera.. but there's no explanation of why you're asking for it, or what I'm getting out of it.<p>I feel like there are huge assumptions about users understanding what's about to happen..<p>And before I grant access to a remote site to my camera, I want a better idea of why I'm doing it, and what you're doing with the feed.
Here's a screenshot: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/VVt0zCU.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/VVt0zCU.jpg</a><p>In short, you move around in the virtual space and your avatar's head is your webcam feed. There is also positional audio, so your position changes who you hear. User can also apparently spawn screen share windows in the sky.<p>Give it a try, it works and feel better than it looks. It is very similar to what you'd find in a VR chat application but it works surprisingly well from the browser with just the mouse.<p>(Completely unaffiliated, simply gave the demo a spin.)
It's a cool idea but after trying it, I feel it needlessly incorporates all the constraints of the real world into the virtual world.<p>Why should I waste time clicking my mouse to move to a certain point in virtual space when no-one is really there anyways? Isn't the whole point of virtual meetings that you don't have to physically be there to attend? Walking around in the void to hear others only makes my personal experience slower and less natural.<p>I feel like maybe the solution here is just to have Zoom + private "rooms" for separate conversations.<p>(Sorry if this sounds too negative, because I always enjoy seeing new ideas and there was obviously hard work put behind this but that's my 2c)
Nice idea.<p>I had a bunch of "phantom" avatars for some reason (<a href="https://imgur.com/a/ixBGuK8" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/ixBGuK8</a>)<p>Some thoughts:<p>- the idea someone just mentioned in the "launch party" about having a visualisation of an avatars audio "range" (how far they project sound) would be useful<p>- a visualisation that someone is speaking could also be useful (little speaker next to their name)<p>- definitely need some kind of password protection for joining, gate crashing would be pretty easy (unless of course you rate limit attempting to join a space to stop people brute forcing the space ID)<p>- ability to mute someone would also be useful in a more public setting (and the mutee should probably get a visualisation that an avatar cannot hear them)<p>- being able to agree with another person to go into a completely new space would also be useful way to take a conversation private
Cool! I think this kind of avatar embodiment is the future. I'm working on one that doesn't use the camera, but audio lip syncing to provide a good experience. <a href="https://jel.app" rel="nofollow">https://jel.app</a><p>Also if you want an OSS alternative to any of these commercial tools, check out <a href="https://hubs.mozilla.com" rel="nofollow">https://hubs.mozilla.com</a>
I can't get it working. I've tried in vanilla (no content/script blocking) Firefox and Chrome. I've accepted the microphone permission, but it seems there's a hard requirement on having a camera attached? I'm getting:<p>"DOMException: The object can not be found here." - FF<p>and<p>"DOMException: Requested device not found" - Chrome<p>Since you state you can turn both the camera and microphone off, I think it'd be much better UX to not force camera and mic access up front.<p>Also, Firefox asked for permission before I clicked on the "Request Permissions" button.<p>Screenshots: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/BKY5bcE" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/BKY5bcE</a>
Have you done any measurements of capture-to-display latency?<p>I've been interested in why Discord feels more natural than Zoom and so far I think it comes down to latency. As far as I know Zoom targets 150 ms, but audio-only platforms can get closer to 25-50, which can make the difference between what feels like using walkie talkies versus a real face-to-face conversation.<p>Any plans on how you will monetize this if it takes off?
The purchase price for that three letter domain must have cost you something serious. Pop.com was that old DotCom project from Dreamworks and Ron Howard that went belly up.
If you've ever tried social apps in VR, you'll know that the "social presence" is what sets it apart from a 2D video call, even though you only see avatars of others and not their actual faces. It feels like you're in the same physical room as someone else.<p>I think Pop is interesting as a bridging solution until VR becomes the main platform for social, because it gives you more of a social presence feel than pure 2D video calls.<p>I'll for sure try it out in the future with calls and see how it goes. Best of luck with this!<p>Edit: Typos, it's bed time :D
I'd add a video demo in the front page. Without a demo or something in the front page is hard to figure out what it does. Maybe you guys (the team) know it well and the assumptions around it because you are working on it everyday but most people here have no idea.
Hi jsherwani - your site is being blocked by this (very popular) DNS blocklist that I use in my Pi-Hole: <a href="https://oisd.nl/" rel="nofollow">https://oisd.nl/</a><p>I'm guessing the domain might have previously been used for spam or something before you bought it.<p>It looks like you can start the removal process here: <a href="https://oisd.nl/?p=fp" rel="nofollow">https://oisd.nl/?p=fp</a>
NextDNS "Threat Intelligence Feeds" blocks this domain.<p>It's also on a bunch of domain blocking lists (don't have a complete list). I've submitted pop.com as a false-positive on OISD.
Congrats1 This was always a dream of mine to get to this with raptfm.<p>Definitely consider creating a preset which positions the users around an object or in relation to each other when they first arrive, e.g. "conference meeting table" or "trailhead".<p>Another one is carefully composing the physical constraints within a space, especially when others are present. In virtual, social boundaries no longer hamper us from flying around or other behavior which can alter how a shared space feels for everyone. It may be necessary to impose rules of movement to preserve the main premise of communication.
I think the site got hugged:<p><pre><code> ping -c 4 pop.com
PING pop.com (0.0.0.0): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Socket is not connected
ping: sendto: Socket is not connected
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
ping: sendto: Socket is not connected
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
ping: sendto: Socket is not connected
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
--- pop.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss</code></pre>
Mozilla Hubs is awesome for this too, you can set up the room with objects like presentations, or just various tables and it also lets you have a little window for your webcam too. The audio is also spatially aware so you can have little groups of conversation too.<p><a href="https://hubs.mozilla.com/" rel="nofollow">https://hubs.mozilla.com/</a>
This is really cool, I joined the launch chat and people were emulating in real life behaviors like standing in a circle and moving their focus to the speaker. I also noticed that multiple conversations were happening at the same time, without interference since the audio is spatially modified.<p>Love the fact that it's entirely in the browser without an app too.
Did this used to be an ad/tracking domain? It was listed in one of the adblock lists I use<p>If anyone has an issue visiting the site double check your adblock.
I feel like this is the future of virtual conferences. The demo is super slick, and I love the simplicity.<p>I worry that conferences adopting this would inaccessible, effectively be barring users who don't have the hardware to run it.<p>Still, super nice demo. I'd be excited to try this out for Christmas to get family on in a big room to chat.
It would be great if you could add an audio/video camera picker before joining the call, for folks who have multiple (e.g. USB sound bar, bluetooth headset, wired mic, OBS virtual cam) and want to make sure they look presentable before joining the call. (I saw that there were options to pick once you were joined.)
Great! Nothing like a pandemic to push tech forward.<p>This would work well with a physical controllable positionable telepresence device as well:<p><a href="http://teleportconnect.com" rel="nofollow">http://teleportconnect.com</a><p>Move around in a shared real space together.
Page only loads for me in incognito mode, normal mode just throws this error: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/JlEeyZj" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/JlEeyZj</a><p>I disabled both privacy blocker extension, but no luck.
Is it just me or are all these apps just recreating video games without the "game" part. "Walk around your office" "Interact with your friends". Interesting.
I built something similar using Twilio’s video SDK <a href="https://github.com/rectalogic/spatia" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/rectalogic/spatia</a>
Fun fact pop.com used to be owned by Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks. Back in 2001 the company i worked at were involved in developing an identity for them for some tv platform. It never went anywhere.
Access it, saw nothing. Will never use it again. Feedback I use to run a test tool for Telepresence, users were able to see each other and see statistics on screen. They knew what to expect
Went to the site with an iPad. Click create. It said it needed permissions. I said ok. It said something will be shown in the browser for me to confirm. Nothing happened. I could not try it.
congratulations, looks cool!
I'm one of the persons behind <a href="https://laptopsinspace.de" rel="nofollow">https://laptopsinspace.de</a> and it would probably be interesting to share some experiences.
Our tech stack is similar, yet different.
We also use mediasoup for the video, Svelte for the frontend and ThreeJS as the 3D framework!
This feels like a fun lightweight version of one of our products, vTime XR <a href="https://vtime.net/vtimexr" rel="nofollow">https://vtime.net/vtimexr</a> which lets you chat with people both in VR and on mobile. It is amazing how much better chat is when you can face people and speak to them. When you throw in VR it gets pretty exciting too. Thanks for sharing.