(This is the Online column written for The Southland Times)
It could be said that the internet has made us somewhat antisocial when it comes to family and friends as we spend endless hours gazing at a monitor and ignoring all other living beings under the same roof.
On the other hand, the internet is a hell of a good way to get to know total strangers in other parts of the world.
Online chat programs come and go but the perennial old favourites in the online paging-chat category are still MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and ICQ. You can add voice and video to all these programs to make the whole chat experience almost like being there. All three are also equipped with online e-mail. Even though you’ll get more spam than a Monty Python sketch with MSN’s Hotmail, it’s handy having a throwaway e-mail address to use when signing up for things online.
Another option, specifically targeting voice chat, is PalTalk, where you can chat one-on-one with friends from your pal list or in a chatroom environment. As with the first three, PalTalk is free but if you’re prepared to pay about $US30 a year you can do away with annoying popup ads and add a few extra features such as moving pictures in the video chat.
If you really want to take the whole chatting with strangers thing to the next level, take a look at the Payphone Project, where you’ll find the phone numbers of payphones from all over the world. It seems it’s become a bit of a trendy little pastime to make calls to payphones in far-flung places just to see if someone will answer and talk to you. The phone numbers listed on the site will get you Guatemala and even the Vatican.
And, yes, New Zealand has a listing.
If you fancy sticking to text chat and taking part in a spot of online swarming, eyebees will be just the ticket. Download this little collective surfing program and you’ll never be lonely on the net again. After downloading and installing, a new icon will appear in your browser’s task bar – click on that, sign in, then pick the swarm you want to join or start your own.
You’ll end up with a little panel on the edge of your browser showing other surfers in the swarm, represented by blue dots. Click on any of those guys and you become attached to them, viewing the same web page they are viewing and able to follow the sites they visit. You can also chat as you follow along.
If you ignore the bee terminology (nasty little things with wings and stingers) you’ll find this a nice little program, and it’s free.
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