Pearl’s Place: a space within the New Year’s Eve.rywhere global celebration of every midnight!
Be forewarned: it’s not a Zoom. Side effects may include fun and a feeling of natural social interaction.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
This revolutionary platform is so much better than Zoom! It’s called Spatial.chat, and it allows you to mingle more naturally just like we do at offline social events. Even better, it does not require any downloads or registration.
I’ve been hosting events on this platform for the past few months with groups of all ages, tech-lovers and luddites alike. You may have seen the Party Pirate Cove or High Feather Worlds theater.
How it works: a video of your face appears in a bubble, which you can then move about the shared space. When you get close to someone, you can hear them more, and if you move away you will hear them less and eventually not at all. The same works for livestreams and other audio sources (Twitch or YouTube) which means we can have real dance parties with our friends spinning, and still be able to talk and interact while the music is playing!
The audio experience alone makes it worth trying out. You don’t get cutoff like you do in Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, so conversations feel more natural.
🍭 HOW TO PARTICIPATE 🎄
Join the Watch Party & Mingle Freely
✯ Come as you are. Wear a onesie and dress down, or get dolled up in your fancy holiday pants and sparkly things.
✯ Move freely and explore. This app is not your typical video chat: you can move around to join different conversations!
ORIENTATION & TECH TIPS
Test your tech. Use a headset for audio if possible as it will reduce echo for everyone. If you have multiple people in your house wanting to participate, you should each login separately but far enough away physically as not to get feedback.
When you join the space, you will be prompted to turn on your microphone and camera with a preview to test if it’s working. You can always use the chat if it doesn’t.
This is still a very new app, but it is generally stable. Most tech issues can be resolved by:
- Use Chrome browser on a laptop or desktop computer.
- Closing browser tabs. Really.
- Refreshing the page and re-joining the room with different audio/video settings.
- Using a headset, especially if people are complaining of echo. You can always mute yourself but we like to have you un-muted if possible.
- Troubleshooting your internet connection. Check if you have a 5G wifi network available. Get closer to your router, or reset your router.
OKIE I’M READY!
On a computer with a stable internet connection, click the button below to join the event. If you are on mobile, you will not be able to see any shared videos and may have connectivity, audio or other issues.
The first time you join, you will see a quick guided tour. You can access this again in the top-right corner of the screen where it says Need Help? and then click Tutorial.