Have you heard the news? Today, while attending Google I/O, we announced the launch of our developers API, giving developers the opportunity to integrate multi-user applications and fun new activities into 6rounds in a mere 15 minutes.

For those of you who don’t know, a developers API is a set of commands that exposes the platform’s services to external developers. In other words, it shows external developers the commands we use in our video experience, and offers them the functionality to then create their own applications within our platform.
 

So why would we open our API?

Since we launched our platform in July, we’ve received many requests and queries asking if, and when, we’ll be opening our developers API. In the spirit of collaboration, and as part of our ongoing efforts to offer the richest video chat environment possible, we decided that now is a good time to open the doors for developers across the world. Therefore, we are allowing developers in all arenas to create different and unique applications on the 6rounds platform.

So what does this mean for our users? Currently, we have five different games and two different activities available in the video chat experience. As soon as developers begin creating new applications to integrate into 6rounds, they will be offered to our users free of charge. Rounders will have more games to play, and more activities to keep them entertained.

Since the opportunities are endless, we don’t know how many new applications will be created and what specific applications they will be. What we can promise though, is that it’s going to be an exciting year and they’ll be a lot of fun additions to the video chat experience.
 

What does our API entail?

The developers API entails many aspects. Here are a few of them:

• Displays the developed application as part of the 6rounds video page experience
• Enables developers to develop multi-user functionality such as messaging
• Enables developers to interact with 6rounds platform and get friends lists and user data
• Enables developers to store user specific application data in our system
• Enables developers to interact with the video experience such as send gifts, change skins and set effects

Using 6rounds simple API, developers can quickly and easily transform their existing social activities and games into 6rounds video chat experience, or create new inspiring applications, both of which can leverage the platform’s inherent ability to deploy gifts, effects, and background themes into the video chat environment. Furthermore, the developers will soon have the opportunity to embed their activities in a stand-alone widget, anywhere across the web, which will allow even faster distribution of their products.

“As developers ourselves, our focus was to create something that will speed up the development process and concentrate on game functionality instead of platform boundaries” says Gadi Srebnik, VP Product Director of 6rounds. “Typical social activities are focused primarily on an asynchronous experience. 6rounds finally changes this”, states Co-Founder and COO, Ilan Leibovich.

Developers are invited to create real-time multi-user rich activities through 6rounds API. They can incorporate their activities with video streaming and text chatting, sync users’ events and mouse movements, customize the user backgrounds and webcam effects, as well as use visual gifts to enhance the video chat experience. These features create a breathtaking experience for the users and prolong their interaction within the platform.

Why would Developer want to use it?

There are many reasons why developers would want to develop application to implement into 6rounds. Here are just a few:

• It’s great exposure for them. It’s a way for them to get their name out there and display their skills, craft and creativity.
• The first few submitted application will get the chance of being a default application in the video experience that will be spread throughout our cross platform environment through leading social networks and ISP providers.
• The video experience will be a personalized embeddable environment in the sense that a developer will be able to embed the environment with a default application, skin and capabilities.
• Studio – our future app store, with free and premium apps, will allow revenue sharing opportunities and an affiliation program for our developers and will leverage their existing revenue streams.
• Our unique API allow developers to make a great, real-time collaboration or game idea come true in an interactive video environment!
• Transforming any multi user game to work in a rich video chat arena takes as little as 20 minutes.

For developers to create very simple applications, like pong or Google translate, it can take less than 15 minutes. From our testing, developers without prior knowledge of the system can use our API and create something in a very short amount of time. Of course, making more in-depth applications such as those that include complex game logic will take longer.

Furthermore, when a developer starts on an application and registers on 6rounds, he gets a kit of information which includes a readymade application that serves as a template that he can tweak and adjust accordingly.

We’re excited to see the many different applications and activities that developers can create and we welcome developers to join us in creating a live, real-time, face to face, streamed web.

Now that you know about our exciting news, go to the developer API page on 6rounds and check it out!
 

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With this video chat Google Chrome extension you can take photo booth snapshots with funny webcam effects and animations, play real-time games, watch YouTube videos, share pictures, browse Google Maps and much more. Everything is available for you on your own or while video chatting with a friend! So go ahead, check it out now!

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Video Chat Rounds allows facebook friends to interact and have fun while webcam chatting. You already chat to your friends on Facebook right? Well now, using Video Chat Rounds, you can video chat, take snapshots, play games, listen to music, share photos, use effects, send gifts and much more without ever having to leave facebook. Sounds great right? Well it is! Check out the demo below:

So now that you know what you’ve been missing, go check it out for yourself: click here or search for Video Chat Rounds in facebook.

For the official press release, click here.

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As you may have noticed, we just uploaded a new and better version of rounds.com.

In case you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s a few of the improvements added:

• Smoother… The new version is faster, more stable, less buggy and just much more stronger.
• Friendlier… You can now invite your friends from Facebook, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL.
• Funnier… View the latest featured snapshots on the new Lobby and see people having fun. :)
• P2Pier… The video experience now uses P2P streaming and the results are absolutely amazing!

Other cool features:

• More Games… New shooter game (AKA “Infected Quertys”). It’s a blast, be sure to check it out!
• Profile Embed… Add your 6rounds profile to your blog, Facebook account or Myspace page!
• Developers API… Create your own activities to enrich the 6rounds video experience. (Soon…)

That’s it for now… Hope you’re having fun and don’t forget to send us your feedback.

See you around,
 

Natasha Shine
natasha (at) gixoo (dot) com

Share your thoughts about the new version in the comments section below.

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Give us your feedback by leaving a comment below…

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For the past month or so we have had an intern working with us. He’s come to work with us for three months from Germany. If you saw our pictorial guide to 2009 then you would recognize him from the pictures. Over the past two weeks, Grischa has been working hard at redesigning our blog and we are extremely pleased with the tremendous work he’s done. This being said, we would like to:

Say goodbye to the old blog

Warmly welcome the new one

And give a big thanks to Grischa for his hard work.

Let us know what you think about the new design. We’d love to get your feedback and comments so share your thoughts with us below.

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For those of you don’t yet know, Google Wave is Google’s latest and greatest product. It has chosen 6rounds to be one of their very first 6 applications and its only video chat extension for the launch, which is scheduled for September, 30th.

So what is a Wave? According to Google, a “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Google Wave is a product, a platform, and a protocol.

To really understand what it is you can watch their 80 minutes demo from May, 2009.
But if you’re running out of time…

Here’s the basic experience briefly:

In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is well suited for quick pings as well as persistent content — it’s equal parts collaboration and communication. You can use “playback” to rewind the wave to see how it evolved. You can even publish a wave to a blog or website, where the content will update instantly as the wave changes.

So how does 6rounds fit in?

Within a Wave, you can insert our 6rounds extension and invite your friends to join you in the wave. You take a seat and wait for someone to sit opposite to you. 6rounds extension, allows Wave users to have fun and interactive video chats with their Wave friends and have the same shared experiences as 6rounds users do. Just like in 6rounds, chat partners can enjoy and share together live and in real-time: from watching videos, playing real-time games, listening to music, to co-facebooking or youtubing and beyond. Also they can enjoy the same fun gifts, effects and skins in their video chat experience.

However, the Google Wave gadget will have some extra wavy aspects such as sharing snapshots taken within a round to the other people in the wave and playbacks of what actions took place. Check out our full press release about the Google Wave and 6rounds cooperation and watch the short demo for the extension (and yes, that is me over there!):

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Natasha will be taking the role of Social Community Manager. If you’d like to learn more about Natasha you can read her bio on our team’s page and also check out her profile page on 6rounds.

We are convinced Natasha will make your stay enjoyable and fun so don’t hesitate to contact her as she is familiar with every little thing to do with 6rounds. She’ll be happy to help with anything you may need and she’s always interested in meeting new people so be sure to drop her a line. Natasha will also be writing this blog from now on so you should look forward to reading the upcoming posts.

Here are a few first words from Natasha:
Hi everyone, I’m very excited to be a part of the 6rounds team. I’ve met so many people already and look forward to meeting you all. Here’s a couple of pictures of my first weeks at 6rounds:

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Here’s the link:

..:: 6rounds – Live Meeting Point | Hang out and do stuff with friends and friends to be ::…

Now, for all those who’ve been following this blog and were wondering what the hell is 6rounds, here’s a little information about us that I’m sure you’d like to know:

6rounds is a rich, interactive and personalized video chat platform that takes shared experiences and real-time collaboration to a whole new level. The platform combines webcams, social activities, and interactive zones and offers an exciting variety of experiences that users enjoy and share together in real-time. The video experience present a broad range of opportunities: from watching videos, playing real-time games, listening to music, co-facebooking or youtubing, to shopping together and beyond. While Rounding, you are also encouraged to exchange gifts, start webcam effects and use the tips machine which provides ice-breakers and advice about your chat partner.

Check out our website and video experience demo below:

And here’s another glimpse of the video experience:

After you’ll register, please feel free to invite me to a 1 on 1 Round and I’ll be really glad to show you everything and answer all your questions. Go ahead, I’m waiting.

..:: 6rounds – Live Meeting Point | Hang out and do stuff with friends and friends to be ::…

See you around,
Steven Miles

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