OK, I know: HealCam sounds like something off vintage Late Night David Letterman. But in fact, it’s quite the futuristic service.
It’s a new, interactive video chat site for people with medical issues to talk to each other, being developed by my friends over at Medgadget.com.
HealCam‘s tagline is: “Talk. Listen. Heal.” It’s an extremely simple concept. All you do is press “Start” and choose a health category (diabetes is one of the first available!), and you will be automatically connected to a random person who’s also online and wants to chat about diabetes (because it’s new, not that many are there just yet). Of course, the visuals won’t work unless your computer has a built-in camera, but most do these days.
HealCam is currently in “beta testing,” i.e. not yet officially launched, but it is open for DiabetesMine readers as an “exclusive sneak peak.” FYI, the site will be ad-supported and currently connects you only with random chat partners – you can’t choose who you want to talk to, but you can immediately hang up and move on to the next partner just by clicking the “Find/Next” button in case you’re unhappy with your first conversation.
The editors have also not yet implemented any registration requirements, so anyone can jump on and use the service. This worried me a little bit re: kids. Who wants them to be video chatting with some random stranger? But the editors assure me that more functionality and safeguards will be built in as the site matures.
So go check it out! The only thing that Medgadget editors are asking from us is our feedback: please let them know if you run into any connectivity or video issues, or if you have any specific suggestions for helping HealCam to get better (ooh, pun well-taken!).
this sounds like chat roulette
Such a cool idea! Especially great for people who feel isolated and don’t have other support. (Will they separate between t1 and t2? Do they even realize that should probably be done?)
Only thing I don’t like about it is that to chat, I’d need to get out of my pajamas and maybe even brush my hair…
What are the chances that we get to talk to the Jessica Alba lookalike in the picture?
Chat Roulette, only socially functional. I wish them the best on this effort.
I dunno Amy. There’s something a wee bit scary/creepy about this concept.
For some reason, I feel like video chatting is so much more intimate than what many of us normally do (blog, tweet, facebook, etc). I think I’d need to get to know someone a bit better before jumping to the video chat step of our relationship.
And what happens if I get “Find/Next”‘ed on over and over again? That would not make me feel good. Just saying…
It is an interesting idea, but I think going straight to video chatting with strangers is just too fast. Time will tell.