11) Chatroulette

Tonight, a handful of observations on Chatroulette. For those who don't participate, a definition from Wikipedia:

Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video, audio and text) with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection.

1) Much like Craigslist, any well-intentioned original purpose for Chatroulette (meet people from all over! let random chance lead you to engaging conversations! interact with cute girls!) are now largely overshadowed by the fact that 1 of 8 spins yields something R-rated. Any hopes of meeting solo females are quickly quashed by the prevalence of male nudity and masturbation.

2) When engaging in Chatroulette, you make yourself a captive audience. You are at the mercy of whoever you get paired with, at least for the split second before you hit "Next". Harley Davidson's ad agency Sassenbach took advantage of these willing eyeballs by setting up a webcam and a branded sign that read, "Sorry, I'm on the road." I'm sure we'll see more examples of Chatroulette used as an ad medium.

3) Done in groups: fun, socially acceptable. Done alone: creepy, socially unacceptable.

4) Males 18-24 are the highest indexing demographic on Chatroulette, followed distantly by females 18-24. Knowing this, is the site a fair petri dish sample of this age group? It'd be interesting to think about what sort of social research could be conducted using the site.

5) The swelling popularity (35,000 people on at any given time, an estimated 1.5 million users) of Chatroulette is just another testament to a yearning for human connection. Even that of a complete stranger (and possibly their genitalia).