Review
We-Talk is a largely video-based chat service primarily aimed at the mobile market, rather than the desktop demographic. With voice and video calls on the go, you can connect to anyone you like, whenever you like! Start a conversation anywhere in the world and at any time.
The We-Talk Brand
The We-Talk brand is all about video – it is the main message behind all of their marketing attempts and the We-Talk website itself. They advertise this with lots of funky, interesting and well-designed graphics – most of which are interactive and animated. The page is built with a parallax feature too, so it also interacts when you scroll through the site.
We are told that this service is ‘more than what you would expect’ and ‘one of the best free online chat rooms’ regularly throughout the user journey. This is a little bit of horn-blowing if you ask us, but then again, the website is extremely good and perhaps one of the most pioneering out there.
Registration
It is not immediately obvious whether you must register or sign in to begin with, especially when looking at the site for the first time. In fact, you do not realise you must register at all until you go into a specific chat room and attempt to type a message. Here, you are instructed to sign in.
This isn’t a great user experience so far, but what is brilliant is that you can register and sign in using Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Otherwise you only need to provide an email address, name and password. You are sent a confirmation email to click a validation link in order to complete the process.
Once you click this link, you are asked to confirm the username you wish to use one more time. And then you’re in!
Desktop/Mobile Capability
We-Talk is primarily a mobile application, but it is also available on desktop too. Not many people use the desktop version in comparison, but it is there should you want or need it. The video chat functionality is severely lacking on desktop.
User Experience
The main user experience of We-Talk is built around the video functionality, as mentioned above. As also previously mentioned, the service is targeted towards mobile users primarily. So if you wish to video call somebody on your phone, the user experience is going to be pretty solid for you. If you are expecting additional features, bells, whistles and more social activity – you will not find it here.
The desktop experience is also considerably lacking in comparison to the mobile experience. We believe that you cannot use the video function on the desktop site at all – which is a bit of a bummer!
Safety and Security
We-Talk is a safe environment to chat to people you know and meet those that you don’t. There aren’t any obvious safety messages or code of conduct protocols for users to read upon. This is a shame, as it shows a bit of customer care and consideration having such messages on your site. Especially when a lot of We-Talk’s members are below the age of 16.
Overall though, this site is safe and sound for most users, with little to no complaints online relating to the security of We-Talk’s members.
Customer Service
The support system is not the greatest in all truth. There is a ‘contact us’ button and once you click it you are presented with this contact form – situated right at the top of the screen. In fact, some of the first line is truncated so you cannot see it properly. You fill out your name, email address and your message.
There is a ‘Get to Know We-Talk Team’ page with options to talk directly to the site’s administrators. However, when you click on any of the names, the site tells you these people do not exist. Not the most supportive of support channels!
Conclusion
When it comes to We-Talk – it is what it is. If you want free video and voice calls on the go with your chat service, then you may fall in love with this site very quickly. For those that require a little more entertainment or some extra features, you are probably better off looking elsewhere. The site itself is designed extremely well, with some funky interactive features dotted all over each page.
However, it doesn’t seem as much attention has been paid to the chat service itself, especially for desktop users. For all of these reasons mentioned above, we’ve given We-Talk a middle-of-the-road score of 5.5!
