Webcams, which started out as clumsy, low resolution and generally unsatisfactory peripherals are now baked into most of our laptops and phones. They offer high resolutions and admirable ease-of-use. And, with the advent of ubiquitous broadband, they cry out for almost daily use. People do use them often, but Sean Parker isn’t convinced we’re using them right. That’s where his new service, Airtime, comes in.  Launched on Tuesday morning in New York City with a star-studded lineup of guests that included Jimmy Fallon and Julia Louis Dreyfus (via video), the social video network defies the conventions of typical video-chat services. Parker, who teased the app in a recent chat at the 10th annual AllThingsD Conference, said “Video chat apps don’t have to be downloadable apps,” perhaps taking a dig at the enormously popular free video conferencing app Skype. He also noted that, up to now, all interactions have been constrained by the social graph.  “Why is nobody doing anything with the interest graph — it’s all used to target ads and not being used to do anything interesting to connect people,” said Parker.  The serial entrepreneur who helped launch Facebook and Spotify is partnered with another notable “Shawn”: Shawn Fanning of Napster fame. The two gathered media in Milk Studios to show off their own take on video conversation. Prior to the launch, some were describing Airtime as “Chatroulette without the nudity.” The aforementioned video service was briefly popular and notorious. It was an open video network where you often saw random people doing awful things.  Airtime leverages your Facebook account and interest graph to connect you, via video chat, with people you do and don’t know. Once you’ve allowed Airtime to access your public info, it instantly starts searching for people you do and don’t know who are either nearby, have common interests or are friends of friends. You can, at any time, narrow the search for chat partners by any of these metrics as well as show or hide any of your interests (see the gallery below). The latter all appear by default right below your name.  The interface is, overall, very green. But that doesn’t matter much since most of it will be taken up by the images of you and your video-chat partner. That partner, by the way, appears as “Anonymous” until you add them to your Airtime list.  Another key element of the new social video chat platform (or “network” as Sean Parker prefers to call it) is the ability to share videos while you’re video chatting. In other words, you can see your video chat counterpart in one screen and a YouTube video they’re sharing with you in another.  For now, Airtime does not support the iPad. More details as they become available.  Here's what you see when you first start using Airtime.  Here's how Airtime walks you through an initial chat.  Here's how a chat between two users looks in Airtime.  The search screen in Airtime.  Like Twitter, Airtime keeps track of the popular things people are talking about.  Airtime auto-populates your interests based on your Facebook profile, but you can remove any of them at any time.
Described as "Chatroulette without the nudity," Airtime uses your Facebook account to get you talking face to face with interesting people.