Talk City review

On to another review: Talk City.

Now that I'm back in PC land, I can enjoy websites that use Java and flash again. One of those is Talk City. Talk city is an IRC host (internet relay chat) morphed into a social networking site. People can join for $7.77 a year and open their own chat room or it's free to join and browse existing rooms. You'll have to create a profile which can include some personal info and pictures, none of which are required.

The site itself is nicely done. It's easy to find active rooms and they have decent descriptions to let you know what you might be getting into before you join. It's kind of fun to jump into a room and start meeting new people, even though the communication is limited. (I'll warn you now, this may turn into a rant about people I've met at Talk City.) You have to be very careful about how you write things. Be sure to include "lol" or something similar if what you're saying is at all intended to be humorous, amusing, or sarcastic. People tend to take it the wrong way if you don't.

One technical problem I had last night was in a trivia room. The trivia rooms are kinda cool. The trivia is run by 'bots' which are programs that automatically post questions, read answers, and keep score, directly within the chat. The problem with this one was lag...I think. More than a couple of people would post their answers immediately after the question got done loading on my screen. So within one second, the question would get asked, answered, and scored. I call shenanigans.

So on to the fun stuff; the rant about some of the people. I will qualify this by saying that most of the people on TC are very nice. They always greet you and ask how you're doing and all that.

One of the first rooms I visited seemed very nice, and they still are I'm sure. But late Friday night it was quickly ruined by one or two very drunk & aroused women. They kept asking for pictures of all the guys and making lewd comments about the pictures they were looking at. I left and haven't been back.

The next room was a similar sized room, but promised to be less promiscuous. The first visit was pleasant. Not very active, but I met a couple of nice people. The next time I visited, there was a trivia game going on. I guess that happens sometimes if there's only a few people in the room. Three of us new visitors were enjoying it and chatting during the game. One of the people I met during the previous visit, the room owner actually, hopped on and got pissy real quick. He didn't like the game going on and shut it off, which was completely within his rights. The bad thing was that he expected people to argue with him about it, so he read an argument in anything that expressed even the mildest disappointment. Nobody really cared, but this guy was looking for a fight. Completely ruined the chat and went downhill from there when one of the other visitors called him a jerk (rightfully so.) I told him I was going to leave and not come back and wondered if he wanted to know why. He said he didn't care, and thought it was because of his rules. I said, "It had nothing to do with the rules, but since you don't care, have a good night." What I wanted to tell the guy was that he's the host of the room and if he wants his room to be successful, he should be the better man and get over it.

Then there was the third room. It was disappointing. It's a religiously oriented room, but the discussion wasn't. The chat was very dry and slow, "God Blessings" multiplying like rabbits, and given the chance, some people would take the opportunity to vent about their problems. I was hoping for more of a 'comparative religions' chat.

So if you want to witness a freak show, Talk City might just be for you.

Alright, that wasn't very nice, but in a way it's still true. Just don't expect a perfect fit, as far as conversation or personalities go. In fact, don't expect anything at all and you'll be fine.