Facebook App Movie Talk Rounds Adds Random Talk to its Suite of Games and Screen Sharing

Facebook app Movie Talk Rounds, an interactive playground built around movie talk, today launches Random Rounds to permit some of its 300,000 monthly active users to talk with strangers. The app had sought to differentiate itself from the shallow interactions and unwanted nakedness of random movie talk sites like Chatroulette by letting users play games, share virtual gifts, and cooperatively browse Facebook or YouTube through the app.

Now it will attempt to suggest a similar service without giving way to objectionable content or sacrificing privacy.

Random Rounds permits users be connected with a random Movie Talk Rounds user. To reduce the chances for manhandle, only users with one hundred Facebook friends or more can use Random Rounds, preventing people from using fresh fake accounts. A user’s total name is instantly available to their talk playmate. Users are grouped by age — thirteen to seventeen and eighteen and up — to prevent kids from inappropriately talking with adults.

If these safeguards don’t work, users can lightly report objectionable behavior to Movie Talk Rounds and Facebook using one of several links. This ensures predators or those attempting to expose themselves will be banned from the app and possibly have their Facebook account terminated. Overall, Random Rounds does a remarkably good job of keeping out the troublemakers, which led to the rapid decline of Chatroulette and its copy cats.

Movie Talk Rounds’ existing suggesting of features is what truly makes it joy. Users get a unique rnds.me URL that acts as their movie talk phone number. While movie talking with friends, users can take photo snapshots and post them to their wall and overlay virtual bounty stamps or effects on the stream of themselves or their friend. In this way, it takes the most addictive parts of Apple’s Photobooth and other humorous still picture editing software and applies it to movie.

Even more astounding is how users can play games together in real time, from chess to Truth or Dare to an arcade shooting gallery. Users can also collaboratively browse YouTube or Flickr, with both users able to click to play movies or display photos. This type of collective practice approximates sharing a single computer screen with a friend, and can be used as a lightweight screen sharing app .

The capability to collaboratively browse Facebook is joy and innovative. One users grants Movie Talk Rounds extra permissions, displaying a stripped down version of their profile to both users. They can then browse photos or friend profiles together, with both users controlling an active cursor at the same time. The two can even work together to compose a status update, the only the profile’s possessor can publish it. The procrastination and engagement potential in being able to browse a friend’s Facebook account remotely is enormous.

Movie Talk Rounds plans to monetize by selling virtual goods, such as extra games, stamps, and effects. Users can presently buy these with coins earned for inviting friends to the app, but they’ll eventually be able to purchase with Facebook Credits. Movie Talk Rounds may also consider advertising and in-app sponsorships down the line. Presently, its concentrating on improving its Facebook search ranking, so users find it before larger competitors vChatter and Tinychat when looking for “movie talk”. The 5-month old, 12-person, $Two.Five million funded company is also working maintain the user practice to keep up growth.

There are some privacy and content concerns with Movie Talk Rounds, however. Nude photos sometimes emerge in the photostream and users might not be aware that when they post a photo to their wall, it will be publicly available through the app. The Truth or Dare game asks questions like “What is the sexiest clothing you’ve ever worn?”, which might be inappropriate for junior users. In an effort to demonstrate the potential for brand sponsorships, the app used a Heineken bottle in Truth or Dare, which violates Facebook’s alcohol guidelines. Since we informed the team, they say they are working on substituting it with a non-alcoholic bottle.

The Facebook collaborative browsing sidesteps privacy controls. Both users can view any content visible to the connected user, meaning one can share another user’s photos that are restricted to ‘friends only’ with someone who isn’t a friend. Movie Talk Rounds’ Marketing Manager says they don’t view it as a privacy breach, but “as two people sitting in the same room”. Facebook might not approve of some of these privacy and security issues, putting the app in jeopardy.

It’s fattest hurdle, tho’, will be overcoming the stigma that movie talk is an unsavory area frequented by sexual predators. Random Rounds is relatively safe, but merely suggesting a random talk service may cause users to write off the app.

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