Chatroulette: The Newest Way to Chat…Clothing’s Optional

| Feb 22, 2010 | 4 comments

A friend of mine suggested that I check out Chatroulette, a site that connects you via web cam to an endless amount of complete strangers from around the world.

Yes, she’s a good friend.

It was started just three months ago by this 17 year old Russian kid, Andrey Ternovski. First of all, when I was 17, I was stressing out about acne and the SAT’s, not starting a social media phenomenon but I digress…

Basically how it works is there is no log in and no registration. The site actually activates your web cam. When you click “start”, you’re staring in front of someone who is also starting back at you. You have the option to chat via text or voice or if bored, click  “next” and a new face is staring at you. You can chat with as many different people that you want.

You know how you could kind of hide behind an avatar or 5 year old pictures and have a good amount of anonymity? Not any more. Chatroulette completely removes that barrier and puts you front and center. Although you aren’t required to log in or fill out any registration form like with the other big social media sites, you pretty much know exactly what you’re getting. Which can be a good and a bad thing.

Let me go ahead and warn you that the online masturbaters have already found Chatroulette and have made it their home so there’s a chance when you click “next”, something more than a hand might be waving at you. You’ve been warned. I unfortunately wasn’t lol.

But there are lots of people on there who are actually wearing clothes. I actually had a cool conversation with a girl from Seattle, one of my favorite cities. She gave me three restaurants to check out the next time I’m there so that was a win win.

Another conversation I had was with this guy Ben, a teacher from Atlanta. As a person who loves learning and education, we had a pretty good discussion about using social media in the classroom. I was for it, he was against it, so a nice little debate ensued. No creepiness at all there.

It is that complete randomness and unexpectedness that appeals to most people who have checked it out and who return back for more.

Not sure if Chatroulette will be the next Facebook but it’s worth taking a look. With your clothes on please.

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Jasmin Brand

About the Author

Jasmin Brand (@brandpointe) Football fanatic, lover of cupcakes and social media. She created Brandpointe, a company based in Dallas, TX, that connects individuals & businesses with learning solutions that improve job performance & efficiency. She believes learning should be affordable and accessible to anyone at anytime so she dreamed about an online learning community that connected people 24 hours a day to learning content that was actually useful and her baby, er, community Ovation was born. Don't try to change her mind. The Dallas Cowboys will be in the Superbowl next year. www.brandpointeonline.com www.beovation.com
  • http://intensedebate.com/people/mobloso Travis Wright

    Great article. I'd never heard of this service prior to this. Yeah, this could be kind of scary who you may see. Yikes!

  • Jasmin Brand

    I'd say someone dressed up as a cat is pretty freakin' scary lol

  • http://twitter.com/emilydstine @emilydstine

    Ha ha, a friend said the same thing to me! Glad you didn't have too bad of an experience!

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