andrewicarlson

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Great find, it aligns with the rest of my stack too so I might find myself experimenting with that.

Twilio's API offers an abstraction on top of WebRTC that handles the peer connections etc. So my interaction is more with Twilio's API than WebRTC directly.

Thanks! It's definitely a struggle of mine. It's more comfortable to stick with a group that you're already accepted into than go try to get accepted again.

Thank you, that's a very interesting suggestion. I haven't heard that one yet. I like the idea of putting more options behind the shuffling, it could make it more engaging and offer focused-but-not-forced random encounters.

You got it!

@mmcclure is right. This uses WebRTC and is currently in peer mode. As soon as I start allowing more than 4 people per room that might cause some performance issues, I’ll need to monitor that. As it stands now there is a hard cost, but it isn’t prohibitive yet.

That’s definitely a common request today — I’ll get that done!

I couldn’t agree more! These rooms are capped at 4 people max per room, but you can configure it to go down to as small as 2 people per room. To keep the conversation flowing better.

Cool! I'm looking for any and all feedback when you give it a go!

Thank you! That's good feedback on the Zoom breakout rooms – it is more aimed toward the enterprise but I was thinking something like this might also be useful for workshops where you want to disperse people at those regular intervals. Obviously not the primary audience though since there are enterprise tools in that space.

You're so right. I have a long history of building things and then struggling to getting them to market. It's definitely a weak area for me. Right now I'm trying to get the word out there and get as much user feedback as possible before doing any more development – the bones are there, I just need the users to tell me what should be better.

A potential area of opportunity is around meetups.

I went with random mixing to add a little variety to the experience. I know personally when I'm at a party I get stuck in a rut and end up talking to the same people over and over. A tool like this where you're warned when you'll mix but you don't know who you might end up talking with next helps with meeting new people.

I also figured it'd be easier to add features like self-sorting later on after I proved out the random mixing idea.

I mentioned it in the other comment but yes, I'm using Twilio's Programmable Video API https://www.twilio.com/docs/video

Nice! I like that you create parties for anonymous users – that's been in my backlog but I haven't devoted the time to allowing totally anonymous party creation yet.

I'll have to take a look at Jitsi – I've been using Twilio's Programmable Video API.

That looks really neat, thanks for sharing!

Great idea! Being able to choose the rooms you enter or leave could be a good way to help make the party more organic.

Awesome! I'd love to hear how it works for you all and any feedback you might have.

Hello again, HN! I'm Andrew and I recently built and released Mixaba – it’s a new way to mix and mingle with people you already know online.

Since the shelter-in-place orders started rolling out in the US I've had the opportunity to attend remote happy hours and larger remote social events. During those video calls I found that oftentimes the conversation felt a little out of cadence or stilted because there would be a greater number of people in the same room than could have a comfortable conversation at any given time.

I struggle enough with social events that it's important to me to have as fluid and comfortable a conversation as possible...especially when remote. To me, part of that includes trying to avoid too many people speaking at the same time which can cause confusion and annoyance. Having 20 people all try to join the same casual conversation over video usually means someone is left out and unheard.

I wanted to create a way to get a little closer to the small-group experience we might find in-person where people naturally break off into small groups and chat and then move on. Zoom has breakout rooms but it's aimed closer to the enterprise, and if there are security concerns it can be nice to have an alternative that doesn't require installation or advanced permissions.

To that end, Mixaba is a small project that I proof-of-concepted that first weekend of our local shelter-in-place orders. One person creates a "party" and can optionally change the shuffle duration, room occupancy, and a secret code. They then share that link to as many of their friends or co-workers as they choose. Anyone who has the link (and optional secret code) can join the party without creating an account. As soon as people start joining a timer starts and based on the party configuration the participants will shuffle at the end of the timer and it starts again!

I've been refining the product and we've been using it at work for happy hours and lunches, and even family Easter get togethers. It's currently only on the web and has support across Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Phone support is experimental but it works pretty well on both iOS and Android. I'd love to see it turn into a mobile app as well for even better support.

It's free and there's no account needed to join a party, no desktop app download, and no 50 person limit. I'd love to get some feedback on whether you would find this useful or if there are any general comments or concerns!

Here's my previous post on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23045293 and a comment on a quarantine side project post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23182747.

Thanks! I'm using Twilio's Programmable Video API https://www.twilio.com/docs/video so there is a cost, but it's not a pre-provisioned service so it's manageable.

I got pretty tired of virtual happy hours and social events where there were people I was socially-adjacent to, but not very familiar with that I kept talking over. I've been working on https://mixaba.com to help solve that problem. It sorts people into small "rooms" and then shuffles the occupants so you get new people to talk to.

It's currently in MVP and I'd like to add more "fun" features to it to push it further into the social space and keep it out of the enterprise territory that MS Teams and Zoom occupy.

Hey HN! I’m Andrew and I recently released Mixaba – it’s a new way to mix and mingle with people you already know online.

After a few remote happy hours due to shelter-in-place orders I was tired of talking over people and wanted a way to get closer to the small groups you’d experience in a real party.

Zoom has breakout rooms but it's definitely more aimed toward the enterprise, and if there are security concerns it can be nice to have an alternative that doesn't require installation or advanced permissions.

Mixaba is a small project that I proof-of-concepted that first weekend of our local shelter-in-place orders. In the last couple weeks I've been refining the product and we've been using it at work for happy hours and lunches, and even family Easter get togethers. It's currently only on the web and has support across Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Phone support is experimental but it works pretty well on both iOS and Android. I'd love to see it turn into a mobile app as well for even better support.

It's free and there's no account needed to join a party, no desktop app download, and no 50 person limit – enjoy!