Site Ants – real time communities
Ants on Site
Back when we did the web site for the Olympics, we’d occasionally take a break over pizza and brainstorm about geeky “cool” things to add to the site. We called the site our WomBeast. Wom stood for Web Object Manager. Beast was what it felt like working with the sprawl of machines and code 24 hours a day.
One of my favorites was “WomAnts.” The idea was to track where everyone was on the site, in real time, like ants walking around a picnic blanket. We could inspect the ants, interact with them, chat, and see the pathways they created. With the flip of a switch, we’d see ants crawling on the site. Click! We’d talk to you. Flick! You’d be logged off. Ooo, the power of it all. 
Now that I’ve had this blog and a number of other sites, that curiosity is as strong as ever. I now create avatars anonymously for all that visit here. For chat, I’m trying out Google Talk. You can see your avatar on the upper left of the title bar. If I’m online, you can click and chat with me. Soon I hope to be able to chat with you, in reverse, for free.
This will take a bit to write in my spare time. Still, its a fun hack.
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