Paltalk: The world's largest chatroom you've probably never heard of
Everyone remember when chat rooms first became available? You could sign up and sign on to have inane 10-word conversations with strangers from around the world. I certainly joined in the fray...and quickly learned that when people are offered a no-holds-barred anonymous system of speech, they use the privilege to talk about, what else?, sex.
Enter Paltalk, a Manhattan-based video chat service founded in 1998 that streams live multi-person chats. There are more than four million active members using the online service, and Paltalk World's list of media and advertising partners would make most Web 2.0 companies drool. Using your webcam, you can join in ongoing chats, set up your own private room and even purchase upgrades to ensure a smoother video feed.
If you're a journalist but not covering tech, you may not have heard of Paltalk. The general audience skews young, at least from what I've seen. While businesses and others may be using the service, they're likely doing it privately.
In the past, Paltalk has hosted celebrity sessions featuring folks like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and New York Times best selling author Douglas Preston.
And the latest celeb to join is CNN Radio Bureau Chief Gary Baumgarten, who's left CNN to become Paltalk's Director of News and Programming. The announcement was made this morning.
Wait, you say. I didn't get that. A chat service provider -- not a broadcast news station -- nicked a Peabody Award-winning journalist with 38 years of experience in the field away from CNN?
Yes. And yes.
Baumgarten is going to head the development of original programming on Paltalk and will host News Talk Online, which is a daily interactive program allowing guests and the audience to interact wit heach other. Guests include, and I'm not making this up, Dave Koz, Arianna Huffington, and Kenny Kramer. (Sadly, I can't seem to be able to play archived shows.)
I just don't know what to do with this information. How does someone in media, who's worked within a very confined context and whose industry has always followed a certain paradigm, begin to understand the changes that are afoot?
I teach a class at Temple University about how to report and gather information using Web 2.0 tools. But the curriculum at that school, as it is at all journalism schools around the country, is really based on the idea that trained reporters will go to work for a newspaper, magazine or broadcast station. S/he may work for the online division, but practicing journalism means doing it at one of these places.
Clearly if Baumgarten succeeds in developing news programming and talk show-style interactive shows at Paltalk...and why wouldn't he?...this would represent a true paradigm shift and a cause to rethink our multimedia strategies as journalists. This isn't just some newspaper throwing video up on the web. It's interactive, live news talk allowing guests and users to see and hear each other as well as to use and share websites and other electronic information as part of that show's content. It's a new editorial product, delivered electronically.
Yahoo! has a very active, productive team of journalists. Seven years ago, Yahoo! was simply a search engine that listed categories like News and Culture to help you "surf the Internet." Paltalk is poised to be a serious news content provider. And there are others.
Anyone else feel goosebumps?
Seed Newsvine