How do you socialize virtually with the people you care about?

We have had a fun time using Gather, we have a virtual pub called the Magpie Arms and on a Saturday we just hang out there and chat to whoever turns up. https://gather.town/ Last week we tried one of those interactive game sessions using Jack Box, that was fun. The other tool we use mostly for work is Whereby. Far superior to Zoom, much much easier to use, we love the personal room feature and honestly the streaming is better somehow. https://whereby.com/ Zoom has quite negative connotations for me now. Sorry Zoom.

I don't think I can handle another Zoom happy hour either.. Check out Bash: https://throwabash.com/ It's perfect for happy hours with your friends and colleagues as it allows for natural conversations and fun interactions. My favorite part is all the integrated games like Trivia, King's Cup, and Tag that you can play while video chatting your peers

I'd recommend SCENA 360 (https://scena360.com)! It allows you to hang out with friends and family around cozy campfires in 3D. It also supports end-to-end encryption so you can feel at ease knowing that your calls are more protected than they are on Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet. We just launched on HN (product-hunt launch coming soon) https://news.ycombinator.com/ite...

We've been working on experiences to truly engage people for long before the pandemic started. It's not easy! We launched Glimpse on PH (https://www.producthunt.com/post...) a while back but have come a long way since that initial launch last year. We're most active on college campuses but there's no reason you couldn't use it at work :) Glimpse (www.joinglimpse.com) is different as it matches people in 1-on-1 round-robin video chats. ie it won't be useful for every situation, but to actually get to know your team, it is perfect. If you check it out would love to hear your thoughts!

Facebook Messenger works great too! :)

I'm also struggling with this. Before covid I was able to spend a lot of quality time with my friends but it was really hard to keep it in 2020. I think we're all having to learn new ways to keep the relationships we care about. At the end though is good to keep in mind that true friendships does not need close contact all the time to last. What I think works well are games. Either your standard online multiplayer video games or more casual party games. Here's a list of the ones I've gathered (I have not tested them all): - Ziago.co - FunApero.com - brightful.me/play - skyfall.app - https://www.datenightquestions.com/ Having meals together are another good option. A friend of mine doesn't like to have lunch or dinner by herself so she usually calls someone. And don't forget unplanned quick phone calls. Sometimes if you remember someone and wants to chat there's no need to schedule a zoom meeting, just call them and have a nice 15min talk. That can really brighten up the day.

Had a similar experience with Zoom happy hours! Decided to start https://onsite.fun to unite distributed teams through curated activities lead by awesome hosts. Our feedback so far suggests its radically better than happy hours :) It's a completely different experience when you have a pro leading the call with an online event.

I simply make a voice/video call to the people associated with me.

We use a pretty amazing 3D videocall platform called https://getmibo.com a lot. It’s really powerful in how it makes you feel like you’re actually physically present. My colleagues and I were so impressed with it that we built an escape room game with them: https://miboisland.com

Great question, and thanks to everyone who answered - I'm going to check a lot of these out! Some of our team members have used https://tabletopia.com/ to play board games online with friends & family - I could see certain games being fun with a team too. We'll have to try it out!

A video call coupled with Online games like CodeNames, https://www.drawasaurus.org/.

I just went to a virtual event on https://remo.co/ and it was great! You can 'hop over' to any tables to chat with specific groups of people. You can organized tables by subject or just have it be more of a lounge vibe. It's fun to see different groups of people and have one on one conversations or group conversations like you would at any social event. spatial.chat is another great tool that uses spatial audio so you can still hear the din of other conversations, but have a focused conversation with specific person/people in the room.

Online games like Among Us :)

Messenger is a great help in my social life.

Discord and video games for sure.

Messenger. Simple enough

I use Discord to communicate with friends and family. Though it's marketed toward Gamers, It's a really powerful, text, voice, video, and screen sharing application. I really have a hard time using anything else.

Doing the same zoom hangouts definitely gets old quickly. Having a structured activity that is out of the ordinary really helps shake things up! https://evenifitkillsme.com - virtual murder mysteries was awesome at making me feel like I was with friends in person.