Giac, Paltalk has never been a big file. I think the latest zip install is just over 1Mb - should't be enough to trouble any computer able to support voice chat...

Hearme had more problems than Paltalk. I seem to remember it required an activeX component that only ran on Windows/IE cutting more people out or forcing them to use IE than Paltalk did. The sound quality of Hearme was inferior and towards the end, it became unusable.

I think the one advantage that Hearme had was that it could be ran from a web page and be hidden from the rest of the world. You took your chances though - there was no mechanism to admin the system - if someone had have read a link on MC and entered to be obnoxious there was nothing that could be done (except move the page to a new loaction for another time). I think some of the praise for Hearme was just down to some people feeling more sheltered and nothing to do with technical differences.

OpenMike. In the early days of Mudcat Paltalk rooms, things used to run much longer. When we decided to make the move to Paltalk, I started the "Mucdat Song Circle" room. I've known the room run from maybe 10PM to 7AM in UK time (different people would take on admin). It was an open room and as such used to get some non-catters in. For those happy with an open room, this was actualy useful for keeping the room open that long as some of them would help to keep things alive when maybe there wasn't another 'catter in site. This of course helped 'catters too as the room was there for so much longer so a better chance of meeting "familiar faces" as well as friendly "strangers".

As for the "jam", I heard a rumour once that 2 of the Live & Unplugged rooms did once achieve playing together on separte PCs in different locations but I haven't a clue how. Presumably, if it did happen, it involved other networking and there are all sorts of problems with lag.

The closest I ever came to a "jam" was in a "Live and Unplugged" room. "Rowdy Male" had the idea of recording me on mandolin and then when it was his turn, he played the recording and backed it on guitar. It worked out better than I expected it to.