Oculus Social is a neat, new way to watch Twitch with others

Oculus has been talking about making VR a more social experience and yesterday was their first foray into this area publicly with the alpha release of Oculus Social.

I donned my GearVR with my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and dove right in. You have to setup an avatar first, but after that you head into a waiting area where you can choose rooms where up to five people can watch. Right now, it's just Twitch and Vimeo that's being supported, but there are rumblings of movies coming to this format along with Netflix.

So, after selecting a little alien head as my virtual presence, I headed into an already occupied room of people watching Halo 5. You have a choice of five seats and if one is open, you just swipe on the touchpad to move to the seat. Looking around, you're situated in a movie theater setting with the content up on a big screen.

As you move your head, the avatars in the virtual world mimic that as well so you know where the person is looking at. When speaking, little speech bubbles appear on top to let you know who's talking. It's a pretty surreal experience and I can see it becoming somewhat popular. Having some folks to talk with about the Twitch stream was kind of fun, but we all know there are certain types of folks that can ruin this experience.

If you're the first one in the theater, you get to control what's on the screen. I popped into an empty one and was able to select the specific Twitch stream to view. I could also change it as well even with others in the room.

I really did enjoy watching some of the Twitch streams on the big screen and even though it seemed a little creepy at first having others "in there" with you, I got used to it quickly and enjoyed some of the conversations I had with people I don't know about what's happening on screen.

My short time with Oculus Social showed me that it has a lot of potential to bring together folks with similar interests regardless of location and offer up a fun and unique experience.