R.I.P. ChatRoulette.com 2006-2009
 

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/20...r_chatroulette


It always seems the stars that burn the brightest are the ones to flame out the fastest. So it was as unsurprising as it was sad when the news broke early Tuesday that Chatroulette's cultural relevance had expired overnight. Cause of death: penises.

The world was a different place when the site launched in November of 2009. A simpler one. Conan O'Brien was the host of "The Tonight Show." The kids were listening to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." A bunch of scrappy underdogs known as the New York Yankees had just taken the World Series. And we had not yet tapped the wondrous power of the Web to connect us with random strangers for conversation, music and genital flaunting. Oh, wait; actually, we'd been doing that for years. That's pretty much what this thing was invented for. But we'd never done it in quite the way that a 17-year-old Moscow student named Andrey Ternovskiy configured it, combining our love affair with webcams with the Cracker Jack element of surprise. Who will you find there today? European royalty? Guy in a trailer? Just log on, click "next" and find out!

Those were heady days that followed. The number of users skyrocketed into the millions. "South Park" parodied it, Jon Stewart spun the virtual wheel on "The Daily Show," even Kelly Osbourne had an opinion. By March, it had become a cultural touchstone, its significance definitively proven the moment Ben Folds stopped one on his own shows to pay homage to his Chatroulette doppelganger Merton. And just as surely as we believed back in those halcyon days that the Gores would stay together forever and the Gulf of Mexico wouldn't become an oil slick, it seemed like the good times would never end.

But the warning signs were all there, grim indications that such great heights were unsustainable. Sure, the social media aspect was initially intriguing, but the mystery of what one might discover quickly became no mystery at all. SPOILER ALERT: It's trouser meat. And while it's true that from the beginning of civilization, men have endeavored to build monuments to their phalluses, Chatroulette's status as an online obelisk was a shaky proposition at best. An RJ Metrics survey last spring revealed that 89 percent of Chatroulette users were male, that one in eight spins yielded "R-rated or worse" content and that "You are twice as likely to encounter a sign requesting female nudity than you are to encounter actual female nudity."

The world is full of big fans of the penis -- God knows I'm one of the most devoted. But when you've got a community almost entirely composed of men, most of whom don't enjoy looking at wangs as much as they do showing off their own, something's gotta give. April came, and newspapers were printing fewer concerned stories about the dangers of Chatroulette to our children. Then it was May, and we realized nobody'd talked about it in days. By June, its hits were dipping, and the world had turned its attention to other, more pressing matters, like Dina Lohan's feud with Carvel. Alone and virtually friendless, Chatroulette spent its days in a tailspin of desperate, lonely wanking, until the inevitable decline.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I went on Chatroulette this morning to verify its obsolescence. Time it took for someone to show me his unit: 10 seconds. I clicked the "next" button. There, in extreme close-up, was a penis. I clicked "next" again. And there was no one there at all. Just vast, empty nothingness. All that's left of a once great civilization is dead air and a bunch of guys sitting around with their pants off. It was a wild ride, a magical, you had to be there time in human history, when it seemed everyone in the world was as close as a mouse click. We'll remember you as you once were, Chatroulette, young and full of song. But the party is over. And you can't build an empire on dicks.

Congrats to the guy who flipped CamRoulette.com for $150,000 and condolences to the sucker who bought it.

I doubt it's dead completely, but certainly without a way to get rid of the dicks, the writing has been on the wall. Ironically WebcamRoulette.com just sold for over $40k, so just goes to show some people do still have hope that it can be refined and well-monetized.

It's still getting more traffic than the sites most of you all have, so think about that before you start piling on its shittiness and supposed "death".

I heard they have a penis detection software now lollll

They fucked up the UI, so when I do check it out (rarely) it pisses me off

its no longer novel.

The concept will not go away. You can make 150k back on that if you know what you're doing. Ten fold.

Yeah, I could tell the interest had dropped off dramatically. The disturbing part is that you can go on there now and see 12 year olds. Why do you have 2006 in the thread title when the site first appeared in late 09?

It still gets a lot of traffic.

more like, they didn't know how to manage the site. It could have kept blowing up and been huge if someone involved actually knew what the fuck they were doing. A 15 year old script kiddie might get lucky and have something catch on, but if you don't know what you doing when it blows up it will burn out fast.

That site had a huge potential with the amount of traffic it had 6 months ago. They missed the window and dropped the ball. period. Didn't stream mates buy it ?

Is it really so hard for chatroulette to hire staff (a lot of staff) with kill switches on their end, so they can just permanently ban the person's IP, whenever they encounter obscenity.

Yeah, the UI sucks now.

that was a big chock, and probably big waste

LOL! is that monkey sticking his dick in a toad's mouth???

I tried the fad myself www.camswap.com

never fear there is always http://www.camroulette.co.uk/

and you can see lots of this

http://adultvideomate.com/chatroulette.jpg

...............and also very well prepared guys just waiting for the right moment to let it all gush out

http://adultvideomate.com/chatr.jpg

Looks like a serial experienced masturbator :1orglaugh

What? Chatroulette has been around since 2006? Wow.

Definitely over paid.

Now what will my pee-pee do for fun and entertainment? Have sex with people? I mean, really.

They should rename chat roulette to gay chat roulette and then penises don't matter :)

definitely a sucker price (if the domain really sold for that much:winkwink:) but horny guys flipping through hot cam girls is totally different.

I've never used it but the name is already heavily branded, $150,000 would be a complete steal in the right hands, why don't they just incorporate a "report for nudity" button?

But what's really the point when 5 out of 10 visitors would get banned? That's a pretty realistic number too, since anytime I have checked out the site you can't go for more than 3 users or so before you see a cock.

If you look at it as a social experiment, it's pretty funny/sad. It's an interesting concept, but I'm not sure how you could have locked it down better, considering you can hop on and off the system so spontaneously.

It was good for having a streamming video with the name of your site popping up every now and again , and it kinda made me lol when the guys with cock in hand on the other end started wanking faster and tried talking to the streaming video and thought it was a real person.. we still got http://www.camroulette.co.uk/ to spam though :)

Agreed, they change the UI every other week it seems. And it keeps getting worse.

I just think female nudity is valued higher than male nudity.

I think it would teach users, that you can't just show your cock immediately to any user you might connect too. Adults would at least be clothed at first and have to converse with the person before the masturbating begins. There would still be plenty of users left.

I proposed that on start but seems they dont listen :1orglaugh

haha thats what i was wondering...

If they were smart they would embrace the cocks and turn it into a gay site.

Just sayin...

How did you substitute the streaming video for the webcam?

What do you mean by "lock it down"?

Hm and after 5 reports there will be a temporary ban for an hour or so.. and after more reports a ban for 24 hours and so on..

they just need to turn it into gay myfreecams

use Webcam Max it works for most of these live chat websites

Just use any Fake Webcam software.

ahahha :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh at least its a clean one he is using and not some re-used scrunched up hanky full of stains

He didn't understand what he had built. It's too bad. He could still could make it good again - but it won't be as cheap to do.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

love it

:1orglaugh

Instructions on how to do that here:

http://chatroulettegifs.com

Don't forget to turn your mic off:2 cents:

Every day with it's novelty...

Well, "lock it down" in such a way as you could perhaps click an option to allow naked males to show up in your roulette travels or to block them. Seeing as they're so frequently stumbled upon and yet are apparently not what people seem to be hoping to find. :)

The death of chatroulette doesnt come as a surprise, but is a huge waste of potential in my eyes.

Still think noone has successfully monopolized on a adult 'camroulette' themed site as there are clearly a huge number of people out there who want to anonymously expose themselves to a live feed and potentially pay good money for doing so.

But perhaps there are good reason for this? can anyone enlighten me?