Having a camera pointed on your 8 hours a day? Yuck.
I can't imagine being concious of that all day long. You can't even scratch your nose!
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Well, a real-life office is like that anyways, at least with open layout.
But I REALLY like their idea of having occasional snapshots of workers not involved in chats, instead of constant video -- first, it's less distracting. But secondly, if they chose the "keyframes" to be ones when you're still, then you can assume they'll never grab you scratching your nose, etc., except for when you're conscious of already being in a chat.
No, a real-life office is _not_ like that. The difference is that if someone is creepily staring up your nose for any length of time, you'll notice and ask why.
The camera adds nothing here except distraction. I'll stick to IRC (and video/voice when actually needed).
very cool idea.. yep, you definitely catch people in awkward positions sometimes hah but we use Sqwiggle every day and it certainly becomes a non-issue very quickly, you just become alright with it.. Naturally we will be building in some extra privacy features but, as-is, it really isn't as intrusive as one might think! Love the idea of picking more flattering stills, thanks for the input!
I disagree. I think the only people who back this idea are the startup CEO's trying to keep tabs on their remote employees. I get more done from home because I can avoid this exact kind of distraction. This is another idea developed by extroverts who don't understand introverts at all. How is this even a main HN article?
On the other hand, I can see this kind of thing becoming a requirement for offshore contracting offices, whether it be support centers or dev houses (say, in India)
oDesk offers periodic screenshots of what your contractor is working on. To me this is enough - a sign that they are on task, but no possibility of catching them mid-nose pick.
Exactly! I work on oDesk and this is more than enough. You, as my employer, don't need to see me working.
Agreed. The periodic screenshots are perfectly sufficient.
Legit concerns! We use it ourselves though and we actually don't look at the app too often, mainly when we want to see if the other is there or are in a conversation..
We'll also be building in some privacy options very soon that will make using the app a bit more comfortable :)
Since you can use their last key click to determine if they're AFK, idle or active the way many chat/IRC apps work today, is it feasible (assuming they're using a smart phone), to use an app to determine if the user is using the phone capacity of that device and relay that via an icon in the chat? That way you're able to use the existing technology to figure out if they're there without needing to visually prying on them.
From the sounds of it, if you're in a group conversation, anybody can join. Is there a notification? For example, in face-to-face work conversations, there are "quiet" conversations (e.g., I heard xyz, is it true?) that are done in public, but where participants can see other people approaching and choose to change the topic or continue. Is there a comparable capability in sqwiggle?
We've actually had many conversations surrounding this exact thing. Currently users can join any open conversation but we have plans to add some very simple privacy options so that some conversations won't be intruded on.