We built friend.com to be the most fun way to meet “people” on the internet. If you’re curious about what it might feel like to be friends with a Parisian chef, or an international spy, try your attempt at chatting with someone on our site. But be careful, because they can block you too.
Friend is unique in this market because of our chatroullete style reminiscent of Omegle, and our Friends commitment to their backstory (think of them like smarter sims). Later on, you can sync your friend.com account with our wearable, which will allow you to take your Friend with you anywhere you go
Could we pick a specific niche to chat with people?
Any random person might not be interesting or a good use of my time. 🤷🏼♂️ However, if I could pick a tech group or travel in a specific town, that would be beat.
It's an interesting idea for sure but I'm not sure why I would want to chat to these "people". Every one I connected with was so miserable. Maybe some fine-tuning to make it less depressing 🥲
@aaronoleary yea and I don't personally mind the abrasiveness but I wonder if others might be turned off right out of the gate by the swearing or crass behaviour - at least those looking for a "friend"
@edwinarbus That's fair. I kind of think they went too far in the other end of the spectrum. Every single one starts with the most depressing story ever lol
Being a Chatroulette/Omegle user from back in the day, definitely fun, but the 'people' seem very sad with dark backgrounds 😅 Would maybe change the experience for the better if there were more settings to change the tone, what they talk about, language, etc. Or maybe even when setting up an account someone was prompted for "what are you looking for" and had a series of questions to answer vs immediately jumping into a chat. Other than that, love the concept!
Maybe I am not the target audience, but there's no way I would want to spend my time chatting with random strangers or get notifications from them. Especially when there's so many of my real friends I want to catch up with and spend time with.
@avischiffmann I've been following this since the domain purchase made headlines! I love making a splash in a unique way and I thought that was a great way to use capital raised (If I am recalling correctly). Have also shown the very black mirror-esk promo videos to folks in my community.
A few thoughts - I think your team might be a little early but I do see a huge use case for this type of technology as LLMs progress and improve (think the humain pin wearable). Once we're at a place where the comms are indistinguisable (could be soon) - you'll see an influx of users (I would presume).
I am curious how the team is planning on de-stigmatizing 1. talking to a computer or becoming reliant on a friendship with an algorithm and 2. wearing a physical piece of technology that automatically puts someone in that camp.
I always tend to think of things in school yard behaviour to determine if something can pass that macro level "cool" test. If I am in 7th grade and I see someone walking around - talking to their imaginary friend (AI friend - that actually talks back) Maybe I think that person is weird or I wonder - why aren't they making any real friends SO I would presume this will take quite a large paradigm shift (which I personally think is coming as gen AI shifts / siri and the like improve etc) - so ya - super curious how your team in planning to combat that likely pushback that other wearables - and specifically one marketed at meeting "people" that don't actually exist.
Congratulations on the launch! It is recommended to adjust the interface, as the current interface is not much different from most AI chat interfaces, making it difficult to regard the "friend" I am talking to as a friend.
Love the concept -
However, I've visited the website 3 times. In all 3 it was "someone" hating their life, and seemingly just want to vent.
Why would I want to engage with them, especially when I know they're not real...? Am I missing something here?
@avischiffmann@mat_sherman
I think you guys need to mention more....that this website has more persona based AI agents than real human beings....because its not that evident from the description and UI of the product.
Friend