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30 minutes with a stranger

(pudding.cool)
1103 points MaxLeiter | 3 comments | 04 Sep 25 05:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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paulorlando ◴[04 Sep 25 15:02 UTC] No.45128082[source]▶
I've been interested in this general question for a while. Years ago I ran a startup that connected strangers for spoken conversations. After tests, we kept it to audio only - no video, no text, no profile info. That was what kept the conversations civil. Add video, or text, or profiles and behavior changed (basically became a dating site). Results: F-M talks were only about 10% longer than F-F and M-M talks.

(Longer-term we focused on connecting people recovering from serious health issues.)

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1. titanomachy ◴[04 Sep 25 15:18 UTC] No.45128263[source]▶
Wasn’t there a moderately popular audio-only social media startup a couple years ago?
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2. paulorlando ◴[04 Sep 25 17:46 UTC] No.45130039[source]▶
You're thinking of Clubhouse? Raised around $200M. Fast up and down. The behavior our old startup had noticed 10 years earlier was that while people were happy to engage with audio only, retention was tough unless there was something more. For us that meant focusing on the health-related talks. Patients and their doctors and support group leaders took the talks as part of the recovery process. Very different retention came from that.
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3. titanomachy ◴[04 Sep 25 22:44 UTC] No.45133083[source]▶
Yep, that's the one. I'd totally forgotten about it until this thread.

The mental health support angle makes sense, though.