Say Hello to ChatRoulette

Filed in archive New Application on February 15, 2010

© Uwe Hermann

Online chat site ChatRoulette has attracted an enormous amount of attention in a brief period of time — and The New York Times has tracked down its 17-year-old founder in Moscow.

"The concept is simple," writes WebProNews' Chris Crum. "You chat via a webcam or keyboard with random strangers. If you don't like the one you're currently connected to, just click a button (or hit F9), and you're on to the next one. Maybe at some point you can find someone you like, have something in common with, or don't find incredibly repulsive. "

According to The New York Times' Brad Stone, the site was created by a 17-year-old Russian high school student named Andrey Ternovskiy. "I am aware that Chatroulette is popular in USA," Ternovskiy told Stone. "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."

"In subsequent correspondence with the Times, he explains how he came up with the concept of ChatRoulette, saying it was originally 'just for fun,' without any sort of financially driven motivation," writes Switched's Amar Toor. "The high school student from Moscow explained that he simply did it because his friends were looking for new, more stimulating forms of communication, as Skype video chats had quickly lost their luster."