We love the Chill concept of watching videos together and are thrilled the team recently raised $1.5M from Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Atlas Venture and investor Paul Kedrosky.
Our experience watching the TechCrunch Disrupt event in a special Chill room -- which is nicely branded and pretty full -- has an intimate feel, but Chill doesn't offer much functionality beyond what you can get in Ustream, Justin or YouTube Live. Frankly, we prefer watching 80s music videos with a group where people take turns VJing than have just one glaring VJ (Mike Arrington in this case -- also a Chill investor) watching over the action.
We can easily reply to a comment, see avatars of those commenting and the "faces" in the crowd, even "thumbs up" someone else's comment and glimpse where a thumbs up is coming from in the crowd, but we can't interact with the event itself.
We'd love to vote on the startup presentations or pose our questions to the startups and judges. We'd also love to follow and connect with others in the room. Right now you have to enter your Twitter handle in the chat.
What other folks in the room would like: a bigger chat window (messages go by too fast) and a way to connect with the chatters after the event and even "chill" together later. One person started making mashups that could be cool to incorporate as well.
The best part: the people chatting/watching are making decent comments and know something about startups. And the Chill room is prettier to look at than Ustream's own chat widget.
Chill co-founder Brian Norgard has said studios are interested in holding premiers on Chill. We hope the social aspects are more robust when that happens.