Do You Remember PowWow?

CallMeKate

CallMeKate

Well-known Member
Location
Mid-Atlantic US
Many moons ago, there was a live person-to-person chat program called PowWow. It was incredibly amazing because the Internet was relatively new and people never saw anything like it. Mid 90s, I do believe. It was run by a place called Tribal Voice.

So you logged in, saw who was online, click the name of who you wanted to talk with... a sound went off in their computer, and you were connected one on one. Sure wish they'd still be around, but I suppose things would be very different now, and probably unsafe. It was a different world back then and there was never any trouble with unsavory users or unwanted attention. It was a friendly place with very positive vibes. Anyone remember it?
 

Not really.

But there are still chatroom sites, and as far as I know they still offer private 1-on-1 chats as well.
 

CallMeKate said:
My gut tells me that would be a totally different kind of scene... sadly. :cry:
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Depends on where you go. I know one room for "50s and up" that is almost all "70s and up" today and very friendly. Only two really active hours a day though. Very few ever use the private chats.
 
dilettante said:
Depends on where you go. I know one room for "50s and up" that is almost all "70s and up" today and very friendly. Only two really active hours a day though. Very few ever use the private chats.
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Sounds fun... is it truly live, though, to where you see the other person typing? I wasn't aware that was done any longer. There are a lot of "chat" programs, but you have to hit enter and wait for an answer... PowWow was live and that's what made it special. I used it sometimes for writing collaboration... worked great since it was real-time.
 
CallMeKate said:
Sounds fun... is it truly live, though, to where you see the other person typing? I wasn't aware that was done any longer. There are a lot of "chat" programs, but you have to hit enter and wait for an answer... PowWow was live and that's what made it special. I used it sometimes for writing collaboration... worked great since it was real-time.
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"Live" line by line, not as you type each character.

They often have a DJ too playing music you can stream.
 
CallMeKate said:
Sounds fun... is it truly live, though, to where you see the other person typing? I wasn't aware that was done any longer. There are a lot of "chat" programs, but you have to hit enter and wait for an answer... PowWow was live and that's what made it special. I used it sometimes for writing collaboration... worked great since it was real-time.
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Most of them are moderated, usually by AI. When the mod picks up on certain words, it won't allow the post. The poster has to reword it and try again.

There are some private live-chats, though. You can have a private Discord, for example, and you can moderate it or not, and download an AI moderator or moderate it yourself and choose other people to mod while you're offline.
 
Murrmurr said:
Most of them are moderated, usually by AI. When the mod picks up on certain words, it won't allow the post. The poster has to reword it and try again.
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Ah yes... that would be different, though, because there was no "posting." I could see you type, so there's nothing AI or a mod could do with live-time like that. I do miss it, but I know it wouldn't be the innocent friendship connections it was back then.
 
I didn't have a computer until 2005. My kids got me one for my 50th birthday.

It was a tough year. I was a crumpled mess in a wheelchair, the kids lived far away, and my girlfriend broke up with me.

So the computer was an awesome gift, but I had no idea how to use it. Hilarious thinking about it now.

It was Dial-Up, and after it dialed up, I said...

"Ok, so...how do I get on the Internet?"

"Dad, you are on the Internet."

:oops:
 
I used one round 95-97 but can't remember the name. It was black screen with Green lettering. You know the old screen colours we used to get when we turned on new PCs in that time.

That's the chat online I firmly believe the guy I was chatting with was Terry Fator...

I don't remember this chat program in particular and this is a very short Wiki about it.

PowWow (chat program) - Wikipedia

I know of and participated in an actual Native Indian Pow Wow. Woohoo that had been tons of fun. šŸ¤£šŸ¤£šŸ¤£
 
CallMeKate said:
Many moons ago, there was a live person-to-person chat program called PowWow. It was incredibly amazing because the Internet was relatively new and people never saw anything like it. Mid 90s, I do believe. It was run by a place called Tribal Voice.

So you logged in, saw who was online, click the name of who you wanted to talk with... a sound went off in their computer, and you were connected one on one. Sure wish they'd still be around, but I suppose things would be very different now, and probably unsafe. It was a different world back then and there was never any trouble with unsavory users or unwanted attention. It was a friendly place with very positive vibes. Anyone remember it?
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LOVED PowWow! I stumbled onto it shortly after it started - late '94. It was a LOON sound that came up to say "Hey - where are you" or "Hey - I'm here". What I really loved is when we could group chat in a box - I call it "Tic Tac Chat Box". Remember? You could stack up your buddies - up to either 9 or 12 at a time and all chat together. You could turn sound on and everyone's synthesized voice would try talk over each other and we would laugh our asses off. They also had Private Chat Rooms so you could talk privately (think FB Messenger). I was always the "Therapist". The "young'ns" - less than 30 years old - sometimes would find me and ask me for help with relationships or life in the adult world. I have NO idea why I was in charge of that! LOL I've NEVER had as much fun on a computer as we did back then. ALSO.....this is a novel conception.....we were all really who we were IRL. We even had a PowWow Reunion. All of us "buddies" got together in Tucson and met - and we were all really who we said we were. Not everyone could make it - but we did have people from AZ, CO, MO, CA, HI, TX, Canada, ....I can't remember who all. We had a great weekend and it was hosted by one we all called Pops. He owned a restaurant that is still in business today - by sadly - he is no longer with us. LOVED the internet back then. Nothing scary that we knew of then.
 
Welcome to the forum, @RedFawn ! PowWow... it felt (and was) safe. Or at least we didn't realize that it could be anything but. I didn't use Chat Box for group. Actually I'm not sure I knew it existed... it was always just person to person when I used it. There was no sense of risk or "danger"... even while web-surfing together.

I absolutely loved the real-time typing. Didn't love it so much when I made embarrassing typos šŸ˜ because the other person could see it happening. Your reunion sounds like a lot of fun. The 'Net, fascinating as WWW still is, is nothing like it was back then.
 
Back in the maybe late 90s or early 2000s, I was on a site for a while I absolutely loved. The site had "trivia" in the name and it had a live chat room while you played the trivia games. Unfortunately, the young man who ran the site had to close it down because his place of work accused him (wrongfully IMO) of using their computer stuff for running the game and had threatened him with a big suit if he didn't shut it down.. It had the nicest players on there; I only remember one player's name though, Bald Andy. Sure was a fun site.
 
I remember Pow Wow went by JDB they had sound waves you could play. had some crazy fun nights in there. I usually ended up swinging on a Chandelier lol. Made some really great friends. Dani* and Pumpkin Tess and Dubu to name a few.
 

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