C(h)atastrophe!

The latest fad in the social networking sphere is sites like Chatroulette and Omegle. I was amazed to see the extensive coverage they got on TV this weekend. I first accidentally read about Chatroulette in Vineet’s external blog. Chatroulette is not a very novel concept though. You have a webcam, you start looking for random strangers and just like the game of Russian roulette you will come across a random stranger with whom who can chat and talk. If you don’t want to, then you just have to press the next button. And voila! you will have another random stranger with whom you can chat with. So, this way you can peep into random webcams and meet an array of people. Omegle is like the text only version of Chatroulette - you don’t get to see cams, but can text chat randomly with other people. Both are relatively new sites and on their way to becoming big success stories (somewhat in the league of twitter may be!). Chatroulette was started in Nov 2009 by a 17 yr old student named Andrey Ternovskiy, in Moscow. While Omegel site was created by 18-year old Leif K-Brooks around a year ago. These guys make me feel old, I tell you..lol.

Okay enough said and heard. I decided to use them myself. Another reason of my curiosity was the fact that Chatroulette uses Flash and RTMP (Real time Media Flow protocol) and since I have been working on Adobe technologies like Flex for some time now, it’s an obvious area of interest. But the interface is pretty neat and minimalistic and it doesn’t look like flex/flash coding.

And my experience was-WEIRD..FUN..DISGUST..DUMBSTRUCK..YUCK..WOW..and more…

The biggest fun factor in Chatroulette is the ability to click Next. You never know who you are going to meet next. And that surprise keeps you glued. Also, there is this hope of meeting someone special or just to kill time or to have interesting conversations with people from all over the world. I spent some 4-5 hours and at one point it became quite addictive. I was mostly “Nexted” a lot. People looked at my cam and clicked “Next” very fast. So, you get “nexted” when your partner ditches you and clicks next on you. It’s like virtual dumping.lol

For some people it can be heartbreaking-The “rejection”- It may be a big blow to your confidence when a pretty damsel tells you how ugly you are. ;)

The nudity is perhaps the biggest the biggest turn off. It’s sometimes downright vulgar and very offensive. It’s a high risk site for kids and I was aghast to see a lot of kids, very young who should not be there. And some of them using profanities like anything. Also, a major turn-off is a group of people, mostly teenagers, who have nothing better to do and making fun of you. It’s very hard to find sensible folks. The site is a big NO for kids. It’s not very long ago that I was in that college-going phase, so I can totally relate to the rush the internet brings with it. I believe I still have that childlike excitement of meeting people. But this site is a reality check for optimists like me. There are tonnes of perverts around and if you are homophobic, then stay miles away. Because even you’re simple “Hi” and “hellos” can be misunderstood as gay advances. But then it’s simple- if you don’t want to chat, just click next.

It also shows that each of the people (and I am ashamed to admit it, me included) on Chatroulette had a common bond of being voyeuristic to some extent. So does sitting there, “next”-ing people in the hope of something interesting thing up next qualifies to be a voyeur? I am not sure though.

A bigger disgust, which I think would be common a lot if you look asian/Indian etc, is the racial slurs. I was called a paki and terrorist by at least 2-3 people. Pointing middle fingers is common and abuses are exchanged in abundance. But that’s the catch. At one point you will be having a blissful conversation with a sweet girl and the moment you click next you may find a sick psycho around.

Not all was bad though. I made loads of small and big conversations. Based on my skewed data, I would say- Chinese were a very enthusiastic bunch, with their broken English, very friendly, a few girls actually talked to me very decently, which was a surprise cause its actually very difficult and rare on Chatroulette to chat with girls. Lol;). French were very artistic, no one was into technical stuff…all were either artists, painters etc..The best conversation I had with an architect who even helped me with French language and grammar tips. Sadly I lost his email id.:(. Now that’s the down point. If you click the next button by mistake, all your conversation is gone. Let’s say you were having a great conversation with a “oh-so-beautiful” girl and accidentally u clicked next. Voila! It’s gone. Or maybe you bonded really well over some business stuff and you forgot to exchange contacts. Those deals are lost forever. You got the drift, I guess. Also talked to a Pakistani, a few from Brazil, a few from US, a group of students from IIT-kharagpur(thats what they said, lol), who were busy preparing chits for next days exams(hard to believe,lol)- Some of my conversations went interesting, even exchanged face book addresses and emails. And yes, also realized a few things- Indian IT sector is well recognized, people know about bollywood, and ofcourse the spicy Indian food..in short very stereotyped we are!!:)

I would say despite all its downsides, sites like are Chatroulette are here to stay. I don’t know how it makes money. There are no advertisements as such on it. But as long as there is a voyeur in each of us, it will thrive on itJ. So Go on. Try it and experience your share of FUN..WEIRDNESS..DISGUST..YUCK..WOW..

PS: The most strange thing is they have a mechanism that if someone reports you broadcasting profane material, the site will block you for, hold your breath, 10 MINUTES..10 minutes? i mean…ab kya kahein…;)

PPS: The best moments are simple waving of hands or a smile from unknown strangers. Makes you feel comforted in a not so comfortable zone.

PPPS: Edited Info-Just In- OMG, this has to be live reporting- As I was writing this blog, I went to look at omegle link and it has now a beta webcam option also, just like chatroulette..lol;)..things change so fast..;)