The Brief: Airtime is a video and text chat app that allows people to stream music and videos while on calls with groups of friends.

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DEEP DIVE

Airtime: Watch Together is an app for communicating with friends and streaming content together. Created by Napster co-founder Sean Parker, Airtime provides an all-in-one app for people who want to chat with friends, watch their favorite media together, and meet new people. Within the app, users can stream content from other apps like Spotify, YouTube, Twitch, and SoundCloud. Through the app, groups of friends can all watch or listen to the same thing simultaneously while also video or text chatting each other. Airtime’s group-chat features are similar to those of Houseparty and Squad apps.

Airtime chats can host up to 10 people on live group video chats and up to 250 people in a text chatroom. Users can share photos, emojis, and stickers with each other. Chats between friends can be private or “secret,” or they can be open for anyone on the app to join. Users can connect with their IRL friends via their phone numbers and they can meet new people (strangers) through friends of friends or public group chats.

Safety & Privacy

Airtime’s interface and features indicate that it is geared towards young people. Apple’s app store suggests that users be 17 or older, but the Google Play store rates it as acceptable for “anyone.” Airtime’s official privacy policy states that the app is not for use by children under the age of 13.

As users can chat with both friends and strangers, it is important that they practice internet privacy and safety measures.

Streamable content accessed through the app is not subject to parental restrictions that may be placed on other apps and sites, so some kids could use the app to access inappropriate content or something that their parents have blocked on other platforms.

Airtime collects a variety of information about users. What information is collected and how it may be used is laid out in detail in their privacy policy. Users are required to sync their phone contacts in order to use Airtime.