▲ ▼ YouTube like public chat for ecommerce websites
I like how public chats on YouTube, Twitch can be used to discuss about the content with several others. When I buy something online, I wonder why there is no public chat facility on these websites and only person I could chat with about the product is the store employee or a bot.
When I buy something online, I search for reviews, competitive products and possibly lower price elsewhere; it would be nice if there was a public chat on Amazon or other ecommerce sites where I can discuss with other buyers directly instead of unreliable and often fake reviews on the ecommerce websites.
Netvyne - A Chrome extension to leave and read comments on any URL
I was first introduced to this Chrome extension idea by a friend a couple years ago in college, and worked on it on-and-off as a side project (in Python+JS). At the start of last year, I picked it up as a serious undertaking and re-wrote the tool in Golang+React with a tightly-knit team of 5 fulltime people.
What differentiates us is that we’re building content moderation from the very start, which is more of an operations problem than a technical problem. We’re committed to civility of discussion over all else; if that means sacrificing “free” speech, or taking the site down temporarily while we scale up moderation, so be it. Timing-wise, people are increasingly familiar with the idea of Chrome extensions, and have also recognized the value of comments due in large part to the popularity of Reddit in recent years.
If you have a moment, try out our extension and please let us know what you think!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netvyne-extension/hdmpoglhdchngeiefpiaiilfeicjjfap
https://www.netvyne.com/
We've built a Chrome extension that addresses this (and just released it two days ago, 01/06/22)!
In fact, the use-case you are describing here is a need that we've experienced ourselves, and we support both static comments and live chat.
You can check it out the extension here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netvyne-extension/hdmpoglhdchngeiefpiaiilfeicjjfap
I'll share some background in this thread as well if you're interested!
Thanks @Abishek for connecting us!
Dissenter Web Browser - https://dissenter.com does this by having both chat and comment section for any URL we visit using that browser
How about this. Public chat for any website: https://relaychat.app/
That is exactly what I wanted, thank you. How is your experience with it?
I quickly tried it out with websites like Amazon, it seems to cover the whole website instead of individual items, but even then the chats are old and doesn't seem to have active users. Perhaps it is the 'chicken and egg' problem Abishek was telling about in another comment?
Anyways, this is the best solution for this problem so far. I hope many people use it.
Having a public chat on ecommerce websites does solve a huge problem for the consumers, as they can interact with other customers who are looking at the same product and take an informed decision before buying.
Although the websites themselves hosting public chat could serve their customers immediately, A 3rd party browser add-on could serve this feature for any website out there by creating a common chatroom(window) based upon the URL; But would suffer from chicken and egg problem of having to find users who are looking at the same web page.
Then there are other moderation concerns such as the website publishers/manufacturers/sellers/competitors masquerading as buyers in the chat.
Hey Abishek, this is an interesting need that you bring up. There are a few different ways to approach this problem, but for sqwok.im I am working from an angle of first creating a public chat platform with a high-quality chat interface, that can at a later time be used as an embed etc.
My motivations for sqwok.im are somewhat diverse but center around a strong belief that we need more competition in the social arena, and the current incumbents don't provide a product that matches my vision for sqwok.
Sqwok is a simple, but high-powered public chat app. Anyone can create their own chat room and share it simply through a url.
The mechanism sqwok is built on also means it's primed for the use-case you mention which is allowing site-owners to add a chat interface for their own pages (c2c). Most chat widget companies are focused on b2c right now, and there is a thriving market for that. But as you identified, there is an opportunity to create a way for everyone on any webpage to chat with each other.
I have been working hard on sqwok.im and plan to deliver in this arena. Would love to chat more!
There are many problems to solve and it's not straight forward.
Cheers
I wish you success for https://sqwok.im . You can let us know when it's ready.
>use-case you mention which is allowing site-owners to add a chat interface for their own pages (c2c).
Couple of sites might prefer c2c engagement, especially if they trust their product and if c2c increases engagement e.g. Gaming, Video streaming etc. But for major sites like E-commerce websites as the OP asks, the publisher wouldn't be willing to integrate a c2c chat and so there we cannot depend upon the site owner for a solution.
Thanks, it seems like a 3rd party browser add-on would be the way to go. Would anyone be interested in building this?
That would be helpful at so many levels! Also, for some reason this website wants me to write only long comments, so here it is.
I had the same idea a couple days ago. It can be also a way to interact with the brand if there are several of us who are not happy
Any public chats will quickly devolve into trolling, profanity, just overall flat-out chaos. You do not want one on your website.
The only way it could ever work is if you use strong authentication and force users to display their confirmed real name.
I think it is possible to have a public chat so long as you put enough effort into moderation and building the right tools.
Twitch serves as a pretty good example of this, and we'll be working toward this at Netvyne as well.
https://www.netvyne.com/