ChatRoulette

Facebook and Twitter have seemingly become too boring for some people as ChatRoulette has become the latest social networking website which internet users are flocking to. Through a webcam and a message board, the website is revolutionary in enabling its users to see and speak to random people from all over the world at just the click of a button. It’s risky, unpredictable, but above all addictive. And the mastermind behind the concept? A 17 year-old Russian schoolboy.
On a typical night the website will have more than 20,000 users all looking for random people to speak to.
Most people are online simply to meet and talk to strangers. Others are not. Therefore it is difficult to avoid the odd naked person while spending time on ChatRoulette, but if you do come across them it is very easy to swiftly click the ‘Next’ button.
University of Manchester undergraduates Matt Bennett and Tom Jupp love using ChatRoulette as long as they avoid having a naked man appear on their webcam.
“We heard people talking about ChatRoulette in the library and it seemed like a funny idea so we started logging on.
“Before a night out me and Tom, and the rest of our housemates, always log on because it’s hilarious meeting random people from the other side of the world,” 22-year-old Matt explained.
For Tom there is one classic ChatRoulette experience that will always stick in his memory.
“We met a guy and two girls who were in America and were talking to them when we noticed there was a guitar in the background.
“I asked the guy if he could play us a song and if he took requests. It led to him playing the guitar while we sang the lyrics to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing over ChatRoulette,” the 23-year-old explained.”It was genius.”
The story behind the creation of the ChatRoulette website is a fascinating one, predominantly because the creator was just 17-years-old when it was made. Andrey Ternovskiy was born on April 22, 1992 and his website first came online on August 2, 2009 but was originally called Head-to-Head.org. Shortly after the website’s creation, on November 16th, Ternovskiy supposedly watched the Russian-roulette scene in the 1978 Oscar-winning film The Deer Hunter which starred Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken.
The film is based on the Vietnam War and focuses on two American men who went to off to fight in Southeast Asia. Towards the end of the film the character Mike, played by Robert De Niro, travels back to Saigon just before its fall in 1975 to find his friend Nick. He finds Nick, played by Christopher Walken, in a crowded roulette club but Nick appears to have no recollection of his friends or his home in Pennsylvania. Instead he appears to be in a constant state of shock. Then in a game of Russian roulette in the gambler's bar, Mike and Nick are pitted against each other as Mike attempts to make his friend remember his life. The game Russian roulette involves a stunt in which you spin the cylinder of a revolver that is loaded with only one bullet and then point the muzzle at your head and pull the trigger, not knowing if the gun will misfire or shoot.
But Mike's attempts to persuade his friend to come home are tragically unsuccessful as Nick raises the gun and shoots himself in the head which turned out to be one of the most famous scenes in the history of film.
The film ends with Nick's funeral back in America. It is therefore because of this epic scene that Ternovskiy bought the domain name Chatroulette.com for seven dollars and revamped the website.
Whilst in the process of creating his website, Ternovskiy claimed that the motivation behind ChatRoulette was that he had unsuccessfully searched for a website that would let him chat randomly to people on the internet. The Russian was a regular user of another online communication programme called Skype but has got bored of only speaking to his friends on it. So he began to build what is now one of the biggest social networking websites on the internet. It only took Ternovskiy three days to create ChatRoulette and he did it all from his bedroom.
When launching the website, Ternovskiy got 20 of his friends to test it. It was from that point that the number of hits the site was receiving began to increase dramatically purely through word of mouth, as there he did not advertise the site anywhere. Such were the large numbers of people that starting using ChatRoulette, Ternovskiy had to continually rewrite the website’s code to cope with dramatic rise in popularity.
The growth of ChatRoulette meant that it needed further investment if it was to improve and this funding was injected by Ternovskiy’s parents who leant their son the equivalent of $10,000. However, the teenager was soon able to pay his parents back through the success of his website.
The rapid rise in popularity means that ChatRoulette is currently attracting over 20,000 new users every night, many of which live in America. The site has had more coverage in the US than in Britain, but as the links on the previous two pages show people in Britain are beginning to jump on the bandwagon. In the US ChatRoulette has already been featured on the television programme Good Morning America and been covered by numerous media organisations including the New York Times.
Meanwhile, despite the website causing a stir in the US, Ternovskiy is still running the site from his childhood bedroom where he is assisted by four programmers who work occasionally to ensure the site is running correctly. In order for the site to run smoothly it uses seven high-end servers which are all located in Frankfurt, Germany. ChatRoulette is now also supported through advertising links to an online dating website, as many of the people that use the site would more than likely be found on a dating website.
As of yet, Ternovskiy has only given one interview and that was to the New York Times. In an email he sent to reporter Brad Jones, the teenager admitted that he is glad people have shown such interest in his website and that he has indeed received big offers from companies to buy his product. He also spoke about his desire to visit the US where his website has become so popular.
Ternovskiy said: “I am aware that ChatRoulette is popular in USA. It is interesting, but I have never been to the USA myself. Yet most of my site users come from it.
“I would love to visit the United States. I actually think that it would be best to found ChatRoulette as a U.S.-based company. But this is just an idea,” the 18-year-old said.
“I have always wanted ChatRoulette to be an international thing. That’s why I chose Germany for hosting, because it is in the middle between Russia and U.S.A. It is also at the centre of various backbone European networks. I think this is a good place for hosting a project which connects people around the world with each other,” he added.
It now seems that Andrey is the target of Russian billionaires and other investors as they offer him cash in millions for a share in his venture. It has been rumoured that both Google and Facebook have tabled bids for the concept, but as of yet Ternovskiy has held on to his project. But there seems little doubt that the teenager will eventually receive a high enough offer for ChatRoulette that would see him cash in on his idea. This could well lead to the site being based in America, as Ternovskiy has already hinted.
ChatRoulette has also managed to catch the attention of many celebrities in Britain and the US. Rapper Snoop Dogg, actress Jessica Alba, actor Ashton Kutcher and Paris Hilton have all been seen on the site and they are just some examples of celebrities using the latest social networking site. This all suggests that the success story that is ChatRoulette is set to continue, especially in Britain where it is already being embraced by millions of people. The popularity of the website, especially among students who also use sites like Facebook and Twitter, highlights the type of audience that is attracted to a site like ChatRoulette. Indeed all the students that were interviewed spoke simply about how funny the site was.
University of Manchester student Matt Bennett was particularly fond of ChatRoulette and believes the success of the site will continue to grow.
“ChatRoulette has the advantage over websites like Facebook because every time you log onto it you never know who you are going to come across.
“I think a lot of people are starting to become bored of Facebook because it has become quite mundane and uneventful,” the 22-year-old said.
“Maybe the honeymoon period for Facebook is over and people are looking for a more exciting way of interacting and communicating with people on the internet,” he said. “ChatRoulette may well have come along at just the right time.”
ChatRoulette is completely unique, bizarre and extremely funny but whether it has enough variety to match websites like Facebook and Twitter in the long term is another matter. One thing is for sure though; Andrey Ternovskiy is set for a huge pay day in the coming months.
So why not try ChatRoulette for yourself and see first-hand just what Andrey Ternovskiy has created.
You never know who you might meet........

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