I've been hacking on stranger.video for the last couple of weeks. One big design goal was to build something omegle-like that I'd be a little more comfortable using (thus there's no audio, no text chat, video is limited to faces, video cuts if it can't find a face, if you don't like what's on screen close your eyes and it disappears, etc). But I started before omegle shut down - the timing was surprisingly (and of course the shut down is sad).
The site is also intentionally set up to not feel too gamey; I think some folks experience this as "staring contest" and others as "weird art about missed connections" and I'd like it to be open to both (so, no leaderboards). I think it'd be really cool to set up some physical devices that are all hooked up to an instance of this site.
Anyway, I blogged a little bit more about the site at https://eieio.games/nonsense/game-12-stranger-video/. Happy to answer questions here ofc.
Some marketing to consider...
Both "staring" and "strangers" gives it a disconcerting vibe, amplified by the dark background and the naked request to enable the webcam.
What about "See someone" or "See someone seeing you" or "See someone seeing you for a second", with a blue sky to start?
Then instead of emphasizing staring, just say something like "blink to leave".
Thus: "The webcam will show only your face, and then you will see someone seeing you. Blink to leave."
Also, in the detailed explanation, you might add that it is peer-to-peer, and no images are captured or stored anywhere else.
The "buy me coffee" link makes the site seem... incentivized, I guess. If you instead add that prompt to the information panel about you, I think you would still capture the appreciative few without putting off the many now triggered by pervasive tipping (kind of like early google text ads vs yahoo banner ads).
The vibe of the website is intentional though; I wanted the website to feel like a weird little hole in your computer that someone was staring at you through. You're totally right that there's a different version of this website that produces a very different vibe (and I am probably going to experiment with more ideas in this space), but this one is supposed to be disconcerting.
"Stranger" reminds us that we really don't know these people, yet we do know we share a human experience regardless.
I think you definitely captured some of the intimidating vibe that unbroken direct eye contact with a stranger can create. It was very fun though. I enjoyed seeing people's facial expressions go from neutral while staring at their own face, to lighting up once they are looking directly at another person who is also trying to not blink. The eyebrow wiggles or nose contortions people pulled in order to emote while not blinking was also very fun.
I was beaming a huge smile back at folks, and eventually used a sticky note to write !iH and put it on my nose. Definitely got some reactions from that haha.
Yes, some folks are using a virtual webcam to just show a static stock image of a person's face (cowards!). But I got some unique real humans.
The disconnect is really quick, and felt like maybe there's some bugs. In terms of, folks would frequently disconnect quickly. I don't think I ever SAW anyone blink, so likely the stream is cut off immediately and the blinking frames aren't sent? I'd love to be able to see someone blink in this before they go away. Even a freeze frame of that would be nice. Grounding them going away with the human expression of blinking would help keep me in the experience, cutting away without seeing the action that caused them to "lose" breaks the experience for me.
Very cool project though! I'm not sure how often I've written code that makes a human _feel something human_ that isn't frustration haha.
In general I am very very quick to cut and I think that contributes both to the experience feeling worse and to some of the bugs (there are definitely bugs!). The blink detection is also super finicky - blinks are just really fast, and if I dial down the sensitivity it's super easy to miss obvious blinks entirely.
I'm glad this is resonating with some folks though. I wasn't sure before building it if it would, and this gives me a reason to iterate on and improve it :)
but i also definitely have more work to do to pair people in a more intelligent way so that video is likely to actually work - I put off doing this because I wasn't sure if anyone was actually going to enjoy playing!
I love that installation! My old office had a (much less elegant) setup like this that linked some of the social / kitcheny spaces across our offices and I liked it a lot.
Anyway, I met with someone for a few seconds and it was a strange experience. No audio, no text, only communicating through face gestures, it was fun :)
Glad you had a fun and weird experience with your other play session. That's certainly the intended experience.
Side note: the Hacker News crowd definitely looks like what I'd expect the Hacker News crowd to look like :)
Without even participating you sent me on a journey. Thank you and Well done.
EDIT: I believe this is called "Eye Gazing". https://www.scienceofpeople.com/making-eye-contact
Look for the section "How Eye Gaze Deepens Emotional Connection"
I can think of quite a few entities that are very, very interested in this data.
Nice project though!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
Sounds interesting!
State your hot take, then yell back and forth with a stranger until one of you rage quits.
Its very commonly said that if you stare into another person's eyes for thirty seconds, you'll either fight or fuck.
Looks really cool btw.
I wonder if I print a set of open eyes and test your game.... Will it detect the trick? Would I win or get banned?
Jokes aside, eager to test ; )
in my experience the face detection is relatively good but the eye detection is still a little spotty / could be tweaked[1]. Although within reason that's just part of the fun.
Nice idea!
https://web.archive.org/web/20231030202322/https://www.nytim...
It's not loading for me either
2 strangers staring
ready?
stranger lost connection
repeat
don't know if it can be improved in any way, i guess there should be a way