Airtime - Exciting or Unnecessary?

Sean Parker (aka Justin Timberlake) and Shawn Fanning have just introduced airtime - a video chat service attached to Facebook.  Similar to the way advertisers sort through Facebook data to find their consumer, Airtime uses Facebook data to find consumers who may be like-minded.  With one click, consumers can be instantly video-chatting with someone they never would have met before, and who presumably shares things in common.

The question is, are facebook users looking for something like this?  Is it something, like Facebook itself, that consumers don't know they want until it's there?

I would argue that part of the Facebook allure  is our tendency toward voyeurism and anonymity. We like and appreciate the fact that we can look at someone's profile without them knowing.  (Creepy, but true).  Airtime, on the other hand, offers the opposite: Here's this person!  Talk to them now!

Additionally, as hard as it is to monitor Facebook activity, "Airtime" presents an even larger challenge when it comes to sussing out inappropriate video-chats and preventing vulgar or offensive content from flying across the airwaves.

So, between the technical glitches Airtime had at its launch and the plethora issues it will have to tackle in the name of privacy and appropriate content, it sounds like an uphill battle.

All that said, however, I probably never would have thought a "social network" would fly either.