In June, Sean Parker and his Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning announced the arrival of Airtime—their Facebook-enabled Skype-meets-ChatRoulette social video platform.

Two months on, the critical mass-type numbers Airtime needs to take off still haven’t materialised but it’s hoped that some new functionality might help change that.

A curious combination

At its core, Airtime is a Facebook-driven video chat and sharing app that lets you get together with Facebook friends in much the same way as Skype, but without having to install any software.

Airtime's real point of difference, however, is the ability to harness Facebook’s social graph in order to video chat with strangers that share your passions—somewhat like a more refined (and hopefully less traumatising) version of Chatroulette.

Dead air

While it had been hoped that a desire to meet new like-minded people would drive interest in the platform, so far Airtime has failed to attract significant numbers (TechCrunch.com reports that Airtime currently has only 1000 daily actives). 

That means you’re drawing from a pretty small pool when it comes to actually meeting someone with similar interests to you.

New features new life for Airtime?

In efforts to attract new users, Airtime has just rolled out functionality to let you record video messages and share them directly to Facebook or Twitter (including on your friends’ walls) at a click. It’s hoped that these video messages will see interest ramp up as more users sign up to leave video replies of their own.

Whether or not the strategy pays off, only time will tell. For all Airtime’s hype, perhaps Parker and co. may have to face up to the fact that people just aren’t that interested in making small talk with strangers.