TikTalk: A real-time text streaming chat app
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/tiktalk
Try it out: https://syncs-hackathon-2020.web.app
TikTalk is aimed at anyone who is willing to put themselves out there and text in a way that is based in the heart and not in the head. Social media has become calculated and cunning, sending messages in a way that are aimed to undercut and undermine others rather than being honest. COVID-19 has exacerbated this issue as many people now communicate solely through text.
TikTalk is a messaging service that allows you to watch users type in real time. You’re able to sign in, join a room and begin chatting with your friends straight away. This form of messaging mimics a real conversation and revolutionises traditional messaging applications which rely on heavily edited thoughts. TikTalk allows everyone to see what you think the moment something happens, not allowed for the superficiality of a turn-based text messaging app. As things happen, your organic reaction is captured and put on show – not an app for the light hearted! (and not banned in the US yet!).
The biggest challenge we ran into was trying to decide what to develop. There are so many avenues and pathways we could've gone - for example, we thought to create a map with some sort of COVID tracing but decided against it due to time constraints. Coming to one decision about what choice was best for us to pursue was definitely a challenge! Aside from that, we had the typical software bugs along the way but with 6 people in the team, it was easy to put our heads together and try to work out what was wrong!
TikTalk was written almost completely in raw HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Firebase (platform as a service) was used to service the database and host the web application. These decisions were designed to minimise our time to market and ensure a high-quality, functional prototype from which we could continue to build on based on feedback!
It's easy to say that the biggest accomplishment is actually finishing this project in the given time period but, even further than that, it was our ability to problem solve. There were so many bugs to fix and instead of throwing in the towel, we thought outside the box, thought of solutions that are more sophisticated or efficient or streamlined in order to solve whatever problem we needed - and we think that's pretty cool! It's a skill we'll bring into our subjects at uni and our future placements!
- Sean
- Chris
- James
- Kevin
- Sarah
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