Stripchat, the growing and rapidly developing cam chat site is constantly improving its features and user interface. Almost every time I log into the model broadcasting interface I find a new feature announced, while some of them have limited value to me personally each one does something to solve a problem for at least some people, models, or viewers.

The update just announced to the private text chat feature will help any intensive user of the site, including most models and any serious viewers.

Just to be clear this is an enhancement to the private messaging or PM system, and not related to private cam shows.

Instead of opening text chats in separate tabs, either tabs in the text chat window or separate tabs in my browser, now I can have the different chats that I am engaging in all in floating windows above the rest of the user interface.

All I have to do is click the chat icon at the top of the screen and select which ones I want to open.

Here is what it look like with three floating chat windows open over the public chat.

Once the windows are open each one has a set of controls that I can use to either View Profile, Hide it or Remove it.

That is a little limited and I’m sure more choices will be added once they work out what people want from this.

One important point to notice is that this floating window, which is not draggable or movable, contains all the text chat from that person including their public chat. On the one hand that seems strange that public chat ends up in a private text box, but on the other hand it makes it easier to see all the text from that person.

What really strikes me about this new interface is that the layout and usage is almost identical to that used by the private chat text messenger boxes in major websites. The two that really come to mind are LinkedIn and Facebook which both handle multiple text messages like this, but only on the desktop web interface.

If you are a heavy duty user of LinkedIn or Facebook then this interface will seem very familiar.

Stripchat obviously wants to make something that is easy to use and obvious for the customers, and modeling it after familiar mainstream websites is a good way to approach that. This is in contrast with Bongacams which also has a multiple-private-chats-on-one-screen layout which, while technically similar, looks entirely different and takes a while to get used to. The Bongacams version seems only to be for models while the Stripchat version works for everybody.

As a viewer on Stripchat, you can now go browse other parts of the site, while still keeping your text chat conversations open. That means browsing other models, or adjusting your profile or settings, while not losing track of the private chat.

There are some differences between the options available in the text chat between viewers and models. If you are a model then you can send photos and videos, and optionally set a price for them to be opened. Viewers can also send pictures, but they have to pay if you decided to set a price.

The default prices are 10 tokens for a photo view.

Accepting photos is off by default for models. But once they turn it on then the viewer in the text chat window will see a camera icon for uploading images.

Viewers get to upload a photo and the price is clearly shown.

There is also the option to use their webcam to take a photo in real-time, that’s a good option.

It also works well with the mobile phone interface, so you can be on your phone text chatting with a model and send her a picture of yourself in real-time using your phone camera.

As models can also send still image photos in the chat, either from their gallery or from upload or via their camera, It is sort of a still-picture version of cam2cam.

Another difference is that models can always send Emojis, but Emojis are only available to viewers with Ultimate membership, but not before.

The whole private text messaging works very smoothly, from PC or from Mobile, with text and photo exchange synching immediately.

It is too soon to see how often people will use it, which may be limited by how often models are willing to engage in long chats. Although sexting text chatting with models is popular, just look at Arousr, it does take a lot of effort and energy for models who are approached by large numbers of people who just want to chat. Adding some paid features allows models to prioritize those fans who understand the need to pay to play.

Will this be a successful new feature? Let me know what you think in the comments or the forum. Meanwhile, visit Stripchat to try it out for yourself.

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