An interview with the CEO of Houseparty, Sima Sistani dove into the goals of the video chat application. The conversation explained the app's origins and how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the team behind it.
Houseparty has been around since 2016 and its primary function has remained the same: it's a care-free, fun-focused video chat program. It's contemporaries in the video chat space, apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, cater to the enterprise crowd first. They're focused on telework and working from home. Houseparty has been about groups of people virtually hanging out from the start, and it just so happens that 90% of the world is now limited to precisely that form of communication.
In an interview on NBC's Today, Sima Sistani laid out the current state of Houseparty and gave a glimpse of the app's future. The CEO explained that she calls Houseparty "the face-to-face social network" because the team "wants people to know the right reaction to happiness, not the right emoji." It's a cleverly-written mantra, but it carries some weight since the app prioritizes simple, direct video chat with friends. Sistani admits to the Today hosts that Houseparty has benefitted from the pandemic but her take is that reaping those rewards isn't necessarily a bad thing, since video chat allows us to still be together during social distancing.
Houseparty's Is Poised to Become a Household Name
After confirming that Houseparty has picked up 50 million new users since the start of social distancing, host Sheinelle Jones questioned Sistani about how the app handles safety. It's never mentioned directly but the implication is, of course, related to the problems Zoom has had with privacy and Zoombombing. Houseparty's CEO responded emphasizing that the app is "not a follower network", meaning people can only video chat with friends after a two-way confirmation. That distinction makes this app unique because other platforms, such as Skype with its new Meet Now option, are phasing out those kinds of grouping systems in favor of faster – but more risky – methods.
The timing of the interview is important as we're on the eve of Houseparty's In the House event. Rather than add more games to the service, this next update is a full-fledged event featuring celebrities and themed video chats. Ideas like this further illustrate the platform's desire to be more than just another work-from-home solution and represent the closest thing to hanging out with friends we can get over the internet.
Source: Today