hyfen’s posterous

hyfen’s posterous

Andrew Louis  //  I do media stuff, develop software, cycle around Toronto, and take photos every now and then.

You should follow @hyfen on twitter and read http://hyfen.net.

Feb 8 / 10:24pm

If you've ever wanted to connect directly with the anonymous masses of the Internet, look no further than chatroulette.com

Chatroulette.com is about as simple as it gets: you turn on your webcam and are connected with someone else with their camera on. I kind of ignored this one until arbiter of internet-style, Jason Kottke, described his experiences (and also, NY Magazine).

As one can imagine, a site which broadcasts anonymous webcam streams features mostly lonely men looking for breasts and lonely men flashing their—well certainly not their breasts.

But there were some interesting exceptions:

                         
Click here to download:
If_youve_ever_wanted_to_connec.zip (1026 KB)

It’s just raw internet:

Once you dive in, there’s no way to manage the experience—to filter users, search for friends, or backtrack and reconnect with someone you chatted with an hour ago. There’s only the perpetual forward motion of “next.” It’s the Wild West: a stupid, profound, thrilling, disgusting, totally lawless boom. [from NY Magazine]

4 comments

Feb 09, 2010
olya said...
I messed around with this thing to. It was pretty entertaining, but so so so many guys - girls click away quickly, and guys just look dumbfounded for some reason. Didn't have any meaningful conversation. Its just too intimate!!
Feb 14, 2010
Mel said...
Just checked this out too. So weird!
All the lonely people, where do they come from?

M

Feb 15, 2010
Andrew Louis said...
Mel, last week, I told Ivor that if he doesn't write about chatroulette, I'll forever doubt his credibility as an internet commentator. ;)

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