Chat Roulette - the Latest Internet Phenomenon

I read about Chat Roulette in an article yesterday and it sounded like a very simple and novel idea. Last night I powered up my laptop, opened up my browser, and typed in http://www.chatroulette.com and thought I would give it a whirl.

From what I had read, it sounded too good to miss, and it is definitely a good way to kill time, and depending on who else you meet it could be anything from boring to absolutely hilarious.

The concept of Chat Roulette is very simple.

You need to have a webcam to participate, the whole point being that you are given a one to one videochat opportunity with a person at random.

The Chat Roulette home page gives you some brief information and tips, in case you have problems getting it to work. It also tells you how to report anyone who is going anything appropriate - and there were a few last night. But pretty much, you just need to click on the Play button and begin.

The top of the window has 3 buttons as follows:

Play - start the camera

Report (F2) - report someone who is offensive

Stop - (F8) - turn the camera off

You also have options to Auto Reconnect and to only select people who have webcams (you can try Chat Roulette without a webcam).

Right, let's press the Play button and see what happens...

You should see your webcam light go on, and see yourself on the lower of two video windows on the left of the screen. The right side of the screen is a chat window, where you can see messages from your new videochat partner and also type your own messages.

A message should tell you that you are waiting for a random contact, and then their video window will open.

You never quite know what you will see, which is the fun of this unique site. Mostly we just saw other people looking bored, occasionally someone with very little brain doing something they shouldn't in front of the camera, so be warned... but we did see some absolute gems too.

I should add that if either you or the person you are seeing wants to move on, you/they just have to click on the Next button, or to press the F9 key.

I had my fiancee's daughter sitting next to me on the couch when I started this up, and my fiancee on a chair the other side of me. We all started laughing, and my fiancee quickly said "how do I do this?" and loaded it as well. The three of us were in absolute hysterics at some of the people, and for a while it was just something totally different to do when you have time to kill.

The absolute best act last night on Chat Roulette was one person that my fiancee pulled up. They had a sock puppet, which would move and wave, and pick up different buttons with words on them, like "wave" or "smile" etc. The person doing this was brilliant.

A lot of the contacts I have to admit were quite boring and also bored, but you never know who you might meet, your future husband or wife maybe.

I can see some potential in this, for maybe practicing a stand up routine, for dressing up in costume and making people laugh etc. Maybe over time there will be some cult figures on Chat Roulette who everyone hopes to connect with.

Everything is completely anonymous. Unless you say or type something about yourself, nobody knows anything about you, not even your IP address. There is no registration process, you just load and hit the Play button.

If you want to see how much fun Chat Roulette can be, take a look at The 24 Best Chat Roulette Screenshots - some of these are just criminally funny.

Fast Company also has a good review of Chat Roulette with descriptions of some of the people that you might meet, or some of the things that you might see on there.　

According to Wikipedia Chat Roulette was launched in November 2009 by Andrey Ternovskiy, who is a 17 year old student from Moscow and still in high school. Chat Roulette quickly took off, and it's popularity rocketed in February 2010 after it was featured on Good Morning America and in The New York Times and New York magazine.

So if you are in the mood for something different and crazy, just give Chat Roulette a whirl. It's definitely different.