samesurf: an application to surf together

The Internet is no longer a luxury; it's now a necessity with the ever changing world around us.  The Internet can be used in numerous ways:  as a research tool for students writing papers, a way for business consultants to discover the most popular video games, and for shopping for clothes or airline tickets to Vegas.  Name something you need to get done, and the Internet will get you there.

Applications for computers, smart phones, and tablets such as the iPad have become "must haves" in our society.  Recently, I became a beta user for an application named samesurf (www.samesurf.com).  It's hard to categorize this app in an instant since it falls into a category of its own but imagine an instant messaging application like Meebo that lets you chat with friends on any social network that also instantly enables all of you to surf and interact with the same sites together (they call this "samesurfing").  For example, while you're chatting with friends about homework, travel plans, clothes, or current events, you can visit the sites you're actually talking about together in real time.  No more copying and pasting links into chat windows.  And with samesurf, everyone gets to click their own links – no more just sitting back and watching someone else's desktop.    With samesurf, you can now truly shop together, watch videos together, book travel together, and surf the entire web together if you want to.  It's simple: just type in any URL or click on anything you see on the webpage and every person in your "room" will be on the same page with you (up to 2000 people at once – mostly for samesurf "public rooms").

There really isn't anything out there like it.  samesurf combines surfing together, instant messaging, texting, talk, and video chat into a simple app.  The best part is that it's not limited to computers.  The application will be available on Android smart phones, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and even the iPad (I read somewhere that they may even extend it out to Blackberries).  Currently there's only a beta version of the application available to selected users who signed up months ago, but the release of the app is rumored to be slated for the end of this year - just in time for the holidays.

Below you'll see a samesurf description from a recent blog:

"We're all quite familiar with the ways we share online content with friends. ‘Share links,' ‘posts on walls,' and ‘tweets' have become de facto methods for virally exchanging videos, news, and bargains with friends and followers. These processes have proved to be good promotional vehicles but they're hardly considered ‘instant'.  In actuality, users have never truly shared online content in its fullest sense since they've never been able to see, discuss, and interact with that content together at the same time.

Until now, the most readily available methods for sharing content have been much more akin to a second grader doing ‘show and tell' from the classroom corner with her onlookers sporting blindfolds.

samesurf instantly enables friends to surf and interact with the same sites at the same time.  Whether they choose to lead or follow, users are empowered to follow each other, send messages, and click on links that open as private tabs. The app complements the shared browsing component by integrating private and public messaging, talk, and video chat functionalities into a common browsing framework that supports cross-platform instant sharing, messaging, and talk between PC, MAC, Linux, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Blackberry & Android devices.  Even though sessions will usually average 5 or less users, samesurf empowers up to 2,000 to populate a single session (or ‘room') with larger numbers being reserved for public rooms that match users who share specific interests. "

If you'd like to know more or sign up for the private beta, you can simply visit this link: http://bit.ly/cibUqk