airchat
today was the most unproductive day I've had in a while - it's because I finally got an invite to airchat.
the app has been nothing short of magical, it's the most raw and authentic social app I've ever used. forcing people to communicate with their voice instead of their keyboard or photo reel is like natural selection for ideas and conversations. the best ones live, the worst ones die.
airchat requires effort. and it doesn't require the effort of traditional social media apps - which is to make a great post and disappear until the next one. airchat doesn't reward that. you don't just drop a banger chat and leave, because the gold is in the conversation, the back and forth with people you may not have ever conversed with before.
using it has also reminded me that the keyboard existed to interface our thoughts with computer screens. but wouldn't everything be much quicker if you could just say your ideas and they would be perfectly transcribed & recorded for others to read along and listen to? why do we even need a keyboard when it's really just a (currently very necessary) friction in getting our ideas into words?
airchat showed me the future of communication today. it let me converse with people I wouldn't normally ever be able to have the chance to speak with, and it let me be a fly on the wall in some other great conversations by remarkable people.
side note - I actually built an app called ayana that had very similar ideas to airchat. it was for families to store their memories alongside their voice and thoughts. it didn't take off, and I stopped working on it after a YC interview, but I feel almost vindicated that a voice communication consumer app actually works. I received a ton of feedback from people saying that "it's too much effort to use the mic" - but the effort is what makes these conversations actually worth listening to.