Airtime

Airtime (free) is the much ballyhooed, Facebook-meets-Chatroulette video chatting application launched this week by entrepreneurs Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning (Napster, Facebook). It has two key functions: video chat with your Facebook friends or anonymously chat with a semi-random Facebook user, chosen based on your listed Facebook interests and friend networks.

Thrilling? Yes. Would I recommend it to my real, not-Facebook friends? Not yet.

You can see how there's lots of online hookup potential here, but on day three, Airtime already faces Google+'s months-long problem of being a major sausage fest. I spent an hour chatting my way through mostly guys in pajamas, and encountered only one other female, a journalist.

Aside from the random chat element, Airtime is perhaps the easiest, most frictionless way to video chat with your Facebook friends. Sure the call quality pales in comparison to our Editors' Choice-winning communications application Skype, and other good IM services such as AIM and Windows Live Messenger have integrated Facebook contacts for years, but Airtime doesn't require you to run another application in the background. The only download you need is a Flash plug-in if you don't already use a Flash-supported browser (sorry iOS users) and a connected mic and webcam.

Airtime Basics
To start, head to www.Airtime.com on a Flash-supported browser and allow the app to connect to your Facebook account.?

Using Airtime requires you to accept three loaded permissions: access to your friend's info, access to your news feed, and access to Facebook Chat. You should also note that Airtime's privacy policy states that it records images, conversations, geo-location, and log-file information. However if you're an active Facebook or Google user, you're probably not too concerned about such data harvesting anyway. As with any Internet service, you just have to trust.?

The green Airtime interface takes up an entire browser tab, and is somewhat cluttered. Your Facebook chat list and Airtime chat lists are on the right of your screen. Click on a contact to instantly launch a video chat. At the bottom you'll find a tiny chat screen for typing only; this comes in handy if you don't want to use audio.

When you video chat with someone, your two faces each take up half the page. On Skype, FaceTime and pretty much every other video chat service, your own image is much smaller than that of the person on the other side, which makes more sense. But Airtime is more in the mold of the less-sophisticated design of Chatroulette.?

"Talk to Someone" New
Now for the fun part. A prominent button in the middle of the screen called "Talk to Someone" launches a video chat with an anonymous Facebook member. Before hitting the button, you can tick boxes to filter your matches by your location, listed interests, and friends of friends.?

I started a random video chat with no idea of what to expect, and here's what I wish I knew: first, the chat interface hides your names but lists all your Facebook interests and all your posted videos (but not photos), which your chat partner can add to his own video list without your knowledge. So hide those personal videos of you drunkenly karaoke-ing to the Backstreet Boys, stat.

My first connection?a man in his late 30s with a toddler in tow?caught my interest by playing a hip hop music video I liked. As it was playing the music video overtook part of the screen. Afterwards I dragged a thumbnail of the video into my video playlist, and then I hit "End" to move on to the next.

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