Hello - public speaking is one of my biggest fears - I have been to a few toastmaster sessions but it's hard to find the time to go regularly.

So I was thinking, it would be cool to write a website where anyone can practice public speaking anytime via webcam. (I'm planning to build it rapidly so it will be ready by the weekend).

Video Chat technology has now reached the stage where it can work from inside your browser (so no software to install). This is how it could work:

- Choose how large you want the "table" to be (4, 6, 10 people) - Click on a seat (while you wait for the table to fill, you can say hello to the others)

- When your table is full, the event begins

- The first speaker is chosen randomly and moves to the center

- A random challenging question appears and the speaker has 30 seconds to answer while the others listen - The next speaker is then chosen and another random question appears

That will be it for version 1 but version 2 could include constructive feedback from the audience and perhaps a winner could be voted for (so it becomes a kind competition as well).

I know this wouldn't be quite the same as speaking in real life but do you think that people would learn some skills from such a system? Interested to hear your thoughts.