Voxli (YC W09) Targets Gamers With Browser-Based Group Voice Chat

Congrats on getting techcrunch coverage, you guys should do something with the heyzap guys, there are plenty of multiplayer flash games out there, and this would work together perfectly.

Cool! Congratulations, Voxli!<p>If any Hacker News people want to hang out, go here: <a href="https://voxli.com/hackernews" rel="nofollow">https://voxli.com/hackernews</a>

Having to install a plugin is kind of annoying, but Voxli is one of the simplest-to-setup, easiest-to-use voice chats I've ever used. Inviting someone to a chat via a URL is really convenient and I could really see this taking off.

Here's my advice as someone who used to play a number of MMOGs. There are three very important aspects to a voice communication system which vary in importance based on the particular game:<p>1. Latency and quality. These factors affect whether other players can hear you in time, and whether they can understand what they heard. These are very important for fast-paced situations where you can't afford to repeat yourself, a simple example being arena combat in WoW. <i>Ventrilo is almost always used over Teamspeak for these situations</i>. These sort of high-tension situations rarely have more than ~40 people involved, since once a group reaches a certain size the latency of the entire groups' action becomes higher than the latency of any voice chat.<p>2. Management. Can you mute people who are causing problems? Can you have a "commander-only" voice system to communicate between a few people in a channel without the others hearing? Can you kick people and ban spies? Is this all easy to do?<p>3. Scale. While Ventrilo is widely used in WoW, Teamspeak is used in EVE Online almost exclusively. Why? The reason is scale--there are often fleets of 100, 200, 500, or more players and the voice chat system needs to handle at the minimum a broadcast from a single commander to all of them.<p>Without the appropriate level of effectiveness in these categories, you won't be able to compete with existing apps.

Why are you using an install program? Why not sign an applet and do something from there? Or use flash? Having a .msi file to install is a bit annoying. Also, your install should show some notification that it's complete. Currently, the install just disappears, making it tough to know if it even started.<p>Also, there is no background noise, so it's difficult to know if the program is working at all if nobody is talking (like in the HN room).<p>Furthermore, pushing the push-to-talk button causes behaviour I don't understand. The button pops up, then disappears again. What does that mean? Is it now on? I can't tell.<p>And finally, clicking the "Add room" button causes a strange message about the room that is not clear at all what it means. Am I now in multiple rooms? Do I own the room? If so, where is the list of rooms I'm in.

I'll be very impressed if they can peel a particular segment of gamers away from Ventrilo.<p>World of Warcraft has voice chat built right in to the game but no one uses it. You would think Blizzard doing voice chat would wipe out third party competitors; the precise opposite is true.<p>Also, dealing with whiny teenage gamers as users is enough to make anyone want to kill themselves. Exhibit A: the WoW forums, which are actually stupider than YouTube comments.

Our team applied to YC with this idea so we know there are a lot of prickly issues that come up along the way. Best of luck to you guys!

Verdict:"Made something USEFUL"<p>If the hotkey could be restricted to work only when the window/tab is active, I can see several people using it to communicate within an office environment (or for remote teams).<p>Frankly that will countless IM pings or having to walk to the next office.

IDEA: Let me tell it to connect to an existing Ventrillo/TeamSpeak server.

Would really love this for live video. I know that it doesn't really make sense for gamers but I think their is a nice market in impromptu virtual conference rooms created by sharing a URL.

Looks like an excellent product, what is the plan to generate revenue?

Why is it calling me RoyalPerson?

firefox 3 is slow enough as it is, so i never install plugins.<p>voxli popped by firefox cherry.

congrats on launch

Congratulations, and good luck. It looks very interesting.<p>You are using flash. Can you please use SwfObject, so users with high security in their browsers, don't have to click on the flash to activate it? I hope you understand what I mean.<p>SwfObject project is here: <a href="http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/</a><p>Thanks in advance.

A question. If I have to install an external program ANYWAY, why not just.. use something outside of the browser?