video chat sites are boring. they're intimidating. i remember using one several years ago: it took me three weeks to get used to it.

what helped enormously was having a focus - something else to do. in the case of the video chat site i encountered, there was a "trivia chat bot" running. psychologically, the fact that the user can focus on "doing something" distracts them from feeling uncomfortable and at a loss.

consequently, i figured that in order to make my site successful, i would need some sort of gaming entertainment. so... i started today :)

not content with just doing a live video streaming site, i have to make a gaming environment as well.

fortunately, pyjs - pyjamas - makes this quite easy to do. all of the "game pieces" are Images which are done as Popups, because the PopupPanel class handles "absolute" referencing already... hmmm, might have to do something about that - but now now: i think i'd need to upgrade some of the pyjamas infrastructure from its original GWT 1.2 pedigree to GWT 1.5...

... but i'm happy with what i have, right now.

and right now, i have "board pieces" scattered across the screen - 108 of them - and the positions of the pieces, as they move, are recorded in the database on the server! yippeee :) now all i have to do is set up "notifications" to other users.

i have to say... this is just... i haven't actually _enjoyed_ programming for such a long time: doing this site is a real treat.

one final thing: the combination of video and audio _and_ gaming is important. why? because the users can communicate verbally and visually _without_ having to take their attention off the board.