Last night, on our way home from dinner, I asked Ponzi if she’d come on cam to say hi to everybody who was tuned in. I told her there were probably 100 people in there and she said there probably wasn’t. We quickly discovered the chat room count sitting at 79, so she dismissed me and went about her nightly business. I told the chat room that Ponzi wouldn’t return unless we had at least 100 people in chat.

Minutes later, people were twittering away – asking their friends to join the fun. Then someone decided to post to Digg. In less than a half hour, our chat room swelled to over 400 people – actively asking questions. I was answering them in rapid-fire succession. Our server was taking quite a hit, but we kept going thanks to everybody (SubWolf, Sean, usrbingeek, LordKat, Bear, Kat, Freekie, IslandDave, SC_Thor, Ryan, Pierce (and I hope I’m not leaving anybody out).

We had a total blast – and someone suggested that Ponzi do a live cooking show, taking questions from the audience all the while. I think she’ll do it, but I don’t know when. The site is streaming 24/7 (and the community is buzzing, thanks to new friends from Facepunch. All in all, this is nothing more than an ongoing experiment – but it’s turning out to be quite successful (especially for our existing sponsors, I can safely say).

[tags]chat, irc, live video, online community[/tags]