[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Rally.Video (YC S20) - Dynamic video plat...
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Launch HN: Rally.Video (YC S20) - Dynamic video platform for social
groups
Hey HN! My name is Ali and I am one of the three co-founders of
https://rally.video/. Rally is a video application that makes it
easy to hop between breakout conversations. Users can see and hear
other conversations around them, as if they were in a shared space.
We started Rally because we needed to host a virtual birthday
party, and existing solutions suck for larger groups. At the same
time, we noticed bars and restaurants closing, and wanted to build
a platform that emulated these physical spaces. With that in mind,
we added venues, rooms, and tables. A venue (like a bar or banquet
hall) can consist of multiple rooms (like a patio, DJ lounge etc).
Each room can fit 35 people, and people can form tables (groups) in
a room organically. Tables could have up to 9 people, and can be
joined with a simple click. Users can create multiple rooms,
allowing for events of all sizes, and we are working quickly to
expand the capacity of each room. What's magical about this is how
much more it feels like a real party, as opposed to feeling like a
meeting. Instead of being stuck in a giant gallery view or siloed
into breakout rooms, you are free to switch between tables and
rooms as you like. Instead of everyone being on mute, you can
choose to vibe off of the audible laughter and chatter from
neighbouring tables in the room. You can also create private tables
for more personal conversations and take the stage to present to
everyone around you. Since launching, people have used our
platform for happy hours, team socials, hackathons, brainstorming
sessions, conference networking, trade shows, virtual parties, and
community gatherings. We know a lot of people are using Zoom
breakout rooms for these types of events. Those work fine for board
meetings, training, structured workshops and interviews. We think
our platform is more valuable when you want less structure and a
more social element. Simply put, if you want spontaneity, our
platform works. If you want formal structure, use the other tools.
Rally is a web app, with video being streamed using WebRTC - so no
plugin installation is required. It works best on Desktop Chrome.
We are also working on a mobile version - coming soon. I am really
excited to share our startup with the Hacker News community. I have
tried and failed at building a number of companies, and reading a
lot of the content here has helped recharge my batteries and helped
me keep going. We are free for anyone to use until the end of
August. We are still testing out different use cases and seeing
where demand for our product is the strongest. I recognize the
space is competitive, and would appreciate your feedback on our
product. We'd be grateful if you tried it out for yourself, or
joined us for one of our happy hours today or this week. We'd be
super grateful if you'd be willing to try it out with a group of 6
or more people, maybe with your work team, and letting us know what
you think! Start your own room by visiting https://rally.video
Attend a happy hour by signing up here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/happy-hour-at-rally-bar-tickets-...
Author : Ali_Jiwani
Score : 118 points
Date : 2020-08-10 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
| thedrake wrote:
| Would be good to have a sentiment about the "room" that could be
| displayed and conveyed to others. An engagement or virtual
| clapping would show to others the temp of the room. Also a key
| thing would be to have a way for a small room to grow to a room
| of 3 or more. A way to discover new rooms that are interesting
| would be good. Another thought is to have a time minimum that a
| person would have to be in a room. While this is counter
| intuitive it would help provide bouncing and promote a minute or
| more before making a judgement. I see this as something that
| would be healthy and prevent room hoppers that never fully engage
| and a attention currency that is helpful to meaningful
| engagement.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| We aim to release something around 'room presence' this week.
| Eventually we will get to a feeling of answering which room is
| hot or not based on movement, laughter, etc.
|
| Room discovery is definitely in the works. We thought about a
| public bar platform at one point. IE imagine going to a
| Japanese bar with your friends online and hanging out with
| them. It feels like an interesting consumer use case.
|
| Minimum time is not something we thought of. That is
| interesting. Definitely some food for thought.
|
| We're from Toronto and not only are we Drake fans but 'The
| Drake" is a popular bar in the city that used us a few times to
| host trivia and happy hours. I was very confused at first when
| I saw your username haha!
| thedrake wrote:
| :) Credits could be a currency. You give them to the
| person/people in a room and the room starter would get a
| higher percentage. The credits could also be taken away/used
| when moving from room to room. This would help with the
| currency/value placed on a room.
| ngngngng wrote:
| As a "pro" feature, have people sign up for events that will
| coordinate delivery of food or beverages at the start of the
| event. Everyone gets doordash-ed tacos and beer at the start of
| the gathering.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| haha this is a great idea and definitely one we have tried with
| a few teams!
| [deleted]
| Amishabirje wrote:
| Hello Nice idea and amazing ui. if you convert your website in a
| native app with https://swaptoapp.com then you get more reach
| from app stores as well as play store. Like if you search on
| playstore for biolinky an app come. Swaptoapp.com also do same
| for your website and give amazing app in your email. Also you get
| daily visits as your website will stay as an app in users mobile
| so they can open it any time. Just think do you know the url of
| any website you visited on betapage two day's ago. I think you
| forget that but if you visit a site and then from that site you
| download that website app then it will stay in your mobile and
| after seeing for two three days you remind it forever. This is
| the feature of app. Also app gives an accessibility to your
| users. As typing a website url on browser is sometime boring and
| apartfrom that if you see towords an app it is easy to launch.
| sathorn wrote:
| Cool product! I've actually been working on something somewhat
| similar (WIP: https://cyberparty.io/).
|
| Have you considered or tried playing background music to get more
| of a bar atmosphere?
| yannick wrote:
| This is great! Well done
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Thank you!
| triangleman wrote:
| One thing I'd recommend is to focus even more on dynamically
| updating the experience depending on the user's system resources.
| For instance if the browser starts crashing with too many
| video/audio streams, or bandwidth makes video basically useless,
| you could allow the user to participate in a conversation audio-
| only, or automatically turn off background audio to save
| bandwidth.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| That is a terrific idea! Thank you
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| Very cool. Just curious, for your mobile version, are you
| thinking about Android or IOS? And are you going to develop it
| natively or cross-platform (react native/flutter).
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| I don't think we will go native anytime soon. I think we'll
| still focus on cross platform initially. One of the value
| propositions is how easy Rally is to set up and use. Forcing
| people to download an app might turn people off.
| patchworkguilt wrote:
| This is cool! I imagine this might be too far off your intended
| use case for now, but Rally feels really close to the perfect
| solution for live performances. Rather than breaking off into
| tables, you could use your "ambient sound" feature to lower the
| sound of all the audience members, so that you can enjoy the
| response of a crowd without drowning out the performers.
| ConnorBowlan wrote:
| I think we've all seen various attempts to solve this issue over
| the years, but no one has quite figured out a decent UX to
| replicate the party experience. I'm glad to see you haven't gone
| the common & kind of intellectually-lazy route of moving an
| avatar around a virtual space.
|
| Am I far off in thinking that the core challenge would be
| replicating the transition between sub-groups? That moment where
| you'd like to move on from a conversation and can gracefully step
| away without interrupting a conversation to announce your exit,
| walk through the room until you hear something interesting, sidle
| on up to another conversation without it feeling obtrusive, then
| join in.
|
| I wonder if the abrupt nature of popping into someone's
| conversation with a new video-chat window would go against this.
| Either way, seems like an interesting puzzle to solve. Plus, the
| market is big, has a ton of attention right now, and any product
| has some inherent virality built in since some number of
| attendees will try it again afterwards. Very cool.
| rland wrote:
| So much of the dynamics you describe are mediated by body
| language and spacial/kinematic cues.
|
| If anyone manages to actually crack that, either by simulation
| or some other method, they'll monumentally change telework.
|
| This product looks very cool, it's a step in that direction.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| We have been thinking about this A LOT. We actually have some
| ideas and I am happy to share them with you. Some include
| helpful nudges, permissions, a quick DM etc. Want to brainstorm
| or hear some more ideas? Happy to jump on a Rally call and
| throw some ideas around!
| wcarss wrote:
| not a user yet, but: if you could "pay attention to" a second
| group, elevating their priority so you can see/hear them as
| well as your current group, then not have to 'hop' to them
| officially until you speak, and could have some ability to
| send your audio to that other group primarily for a moment --
| that's pretty similar to turning your head a little and
| briefly joining a different conversation at a big table.
| moron4hire wrote:
| > kind of intellectually-lazy
|
| I think that was rather uncalled for. My own use of avatars was
| a result of a lot of specific design decisions, around
| dissatisfaction with webcam video, i.e. the incongruity between
| the theoretical reason for why it's there ("to provide eye-
| contact!") and the reality that it fails at that task.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| We need all sorts of ideas to make sure this industry
| progresses. I wouldn't take this comment to heart.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| Interesring! Enabling the social dynamics that naturally happen
| when large groups gather together, is something defenitevelly
| needed and the existing video conf solutions are too rigid to
| implement anything similar. Good job!
| pj_mukh wrote:
| We've been experimenting with Rally on/off for a while. A lot
| of other attempts at this try to replicate physical space for
| larger groups (avatars wit WASD controls etc.), and that seems
| unnecessarily ham-fisted shoving a 3D experience on a 2D
| screen.
|
| Rally was the first one that felt natural, to leave and join a
| table, and for there to be a natural speaker "on stage".
|
| Next it would be cool to see if we would hold these calls
| persistently so we can capture some of the serendipity of
| hearing conversations one table over when in person.
|
| Kudos to the Rally team!
| Wistar wrote:
| In his 1998 book, "Interactive Excellence," Edwin Schlossberg
| identified one key aspect of large group dynamics: A sense of
| audience. Particularly how much more enjoyable it is at, say, a
| concert, when you can experience--see and hear--others in the
| audience.
|
| I have yet to see any remote technology that comes anywhere
| close to representing that golden sense of audience.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Thanks for the comment. Haven't read that book but that is
| the basic philosophy we have been thinking about. We are
| hoping our technology can provide that kind of ambience.
| thebiglebrewski wrote:
| Hey this is very cool! How does your product differ from
| https://spatial.chat?
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Thanks for the question! Spatial chat is actually a really
| interesting product. They tend to keep the images small so you
| can drag or move your profile the room. By doing so, the focus
| is not as much on the conversation, but rather the shared links
| or pictures. Our goal is to encourage more conversation, and
| socializing, even while sharing a video or playing a game.
| moron4hire wrote:
| From what I can see, inside each "room" it's basically a
| traditional teleconference session, with the added wrinkle of
| having an audio feed in the room from every other room at
| reduced volume.
|
| Spatial.chat and my own Calla.chat provide a completely
| different interaction metaphor. The room is solitary, but all
| audio in that room is spatialized. Spatial.chat does volume
| scaling, Calla.chat does full spatialization, including support
| for HFRT.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Calla chat is super cool! Would love to talk to you about it!
| moron4hire wrote:
| email is in my bio
| JVillella wrote:
| https://gather.town/ is another. Probably one of the most
| solid right now.
|
| We're trying to take it the direction of conferences/tech
| events with https://meetfromhome.io/.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Nice! would love to talk to you as well- ali@rally.video
| vyrotek wrote:
| I really love the idea and have been waiting for more apps to
| support these features!
|
| That said, I'm a little concerned about the business model.
| What's preventing the popular (and sometimes free) platforms such
| as https://whereby.com or https://team.video from adding these
| features?
| ponker wrote:
| You can add features but you can't really change your default
| behaviors without alienating your existing user base. If
| they're suddenly thrown into some wacky thing that they don't
| understand they will flood you with bug reports and
| subscription cancellations. So if you're approaching an
| activity from a fundamentally different point of view it's very
| hard for your competitors to clone.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Great point! One I totally should have said in my YC
| interview.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Great question. One answer is focus. These companies seem to be
| focused on small business team meetings, and we are focused on
| creating social environments for networking and hanging out.
| Another answer is around where we want to take Rally. Video
| applications usually focus on making sure the connection works.
| Little thought has been put into what happens after a user is
| connected. This is where we believe there is an opportunity for
| multi video/audio solutions to win. Rally could not only
| emulate a bar online, but why not emulate a concert, a lounge,
| a standup comedy stage etc. There is a world of online events
| that need more engagement and social functions and I think
| Rally can solve for that. Ofcourse, this is just a 5 month old
| company saying this!
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _These companies seem to be focused on small business team
| meetings, and we are focused on creating social environments
| for networking and hanging out._
|
| Exciting! Can't wait to see how your product evolves.
| gardaani wrote:
| Is this only about talking to other people or does it allow
| shared experiences, such as watching a movie, playing games or
| watching a concert together?
|
| I'm thinking about something like https://kastapp.co where people
| can do stuff together. It's easier to hang out with other people
| if there is something to do.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _I 'm thinking about something like https://kastapp.co where
| people can do stuff together. _
|
| https://kosmi.io/ is pretty good at co-play and screenshare.
|
| And there's the much simpler https://www.comeover.io/ built on
| WebTorrent (comes with all the limitations that entails wrt
| file sizes).
|
| https://rally.video is something drastically different to
| those, but could very well implement the missing features, I
| reckon: it'd be uber cool to host a virtual School, let alone
| host a movie night.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Kast seems cool. People have hosted watch parties on Rally to
| stream a sports game or a webinar but it's not our forte. Fun
| fact, our initial customers were standup comedians using us to
| deliver virtual comedy to their top fans. Might be something we
| go back to at some point.
|
| I am also a big believer in the watch party space. Shared
| online experiences are an undiscovered opportunity in the
| consumer space. Happy to share more thoughts on this as well!
| jbaudanza wrote:
| I really like this idea but I wish I could try it without linking
| my Google/Facebook/LinkedIn account.
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| As a guest you don't need to log in with your socials. For now
| hosts do but we are working quickly on a login with out socials
| solution. Stay tuned, and thanks for the feedback!
| GraffitiTim wrote:
| We've been using Rally for our happy hours, and internal meetings
| where there are more than ~5 people. It's great being able to
| easily hop between tables as conversation topics shift. It brings
| back a lot of that serendipity that we're all missing from in-
| person events.
|
| In fact, I find it allows for _more_ serendipity than a lot of
| in-person events. In person, once you 're sitting down at a table
| it's socially awkward to get up and move to another table. Mostly
| you just talk with whoever you're sitting next to or across from.
| With Rally it's much more fluid. I find myself hopping around all
| the time.
|
| In our internal meeting this week we split into groups of 3, and
| then took turns jumping on stage to report back to the group.
|
| Disclaimer: we invested
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| Thanks Tim!
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I looked at it a bit and am pretty stoked. Not sure how the
| reliability will work across different internet speeds and
| countries but will definitely try.
|
| Main desire: ability to name tables.
|
| In running workshops, sometimes each table will have a theme and
| then people who want to talk about that theme can join the table.
| Would make it easier for people to know what is being discussed
| at a table before joining. One facilitation example is the World
| Cafe method [1].
|
| Any way to do this now as a host or plans to include it?
|
| [1]: https://therightquestions.co/the-world-cafe-workshop-
| facilit...
| Ali_Jiwani wrote:
| It's probably one of our top 5 or top 10 most requested
| features. All I can say is coming soon. Any way we can let you
| know when we release it?
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Excellent! Glad to hear. Yes, what's the best way to sign up?
| I already registered, I think, so sending a message thru the
| help function?
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(page generated 2020-08-10 23:00 UTC)