I just discovered skypecasting today, and have already been listening to native Japanese speakers chatting away for an hour or so. Sadly, searching for more information on skypecasting, I discovered an announcement that the service will be discontinued on september 1st[certainly won't be using skype anymore -- their loss]

Does anyone know of any other alternatives where I can listen/talk in a room full of Japanese speakers -- like I did on the soon to be nonexistent skypecasting?

That's something I'd be interested in.

I think it's mostly your loss, since Skype only makes money on paid accounts and SkypeOut calls

The actual message says that they didn't think the service was good enough, and they'll be working on a better way to provide those services. So it could be back some day.

Unfortunately, I -thought- I knew an alternative, but I can't find it now. It was one of the language tutor sites that offered a similar service, but I either can't find it, or they dropped it.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I think it's mostly your loss, since Skype only makes money on paid accounts and SkypeOut calls

Very true --- but I might have been drawn to buy some credits had I enjoyed their service enough.

wccrawford Wrote:The actual message says that they didn't think the service was good enough, and they'll be working on a better way to provide those services. So it could be back some day.

Unfortunately, I -thought- I knew an alternative, but I can't find it now. It was one of the language tutor sites that offered a similar service, but I either can't find it, or they dropped it.

Hmm...The service for the Japanese casts was a whole lot better than the English ones...

I've looked at a couple language tutor sites -- the problem there is that they're geared towards one-on-one language exchange. What I'm looking for is a nice directory of open voice chat rooms in Japanese. [although if I could find a language tutor site that did instant voice chat(kinda like sharedtalk, although I can never find any Japanese on their voice chat) that would be alright, although I'd prefer just a spontaneous chat from a bunch of Japanese over a language exchange type thing]