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History of the development of chat roulette

Five years ago, many advanced users dreamed of another new product that would help diversify virtual communication. Popular at that time social media did not have a full range of functionality. And in our time, the capabilities of popular resources are not much limited in their capabilities.

The history of the creation of Chatroulette.

In the late 90s, freely accessible sites began to appear where it was possible to communicate in real time - chats. First chats were text only and had minimal capabilities. With the advent of new protocols and programming capabilities, several varieties of this method of communication have appeared:

• web chats;
• video chats;
• telechat;
• roulette.

In 2010, a Russian schoolboy presented Chatroulette with the help of American newspapers. With a minimum of functions, users were able to anonymously communicate with interlocutors from all over the world. Roulette online communication is the main function of many popular Russian sites aimed at meeting people. Users have adopted the names of such chats: ru roulette, chat roulette, Russian roulette online communication.

Functions of Russian roulette online.

Basic and main function- the ability to communicate with users of any nationality and citizenship. Combining the famous Russian game of roulette and video communication is a nice bonus. On the site itself, criteria for searching for an interlocutor are selected. The roulette spins and a connection occurs with a random interlocutor. Didn't like your interlocutor? Just press the button and you will be able to move on to the dialogue with the next interlocutor. For online communication using Russian roulette, you only need a webcam, a microphone and a good mood.

Roulette online communication advantages. Lack of communication at a frantic pace of life is a problem for many people. The main advantages of portals based on webcam communication:

• live communication;
• the opportunity to find an interlocutor on any topic of interest;
• opportunity to diversify your leisure time for free.

Russian roulette for online communication is the choice of a large percentage of users in our country.

Video chat without time limits

In life we ​​have to limit ourselves in many ways. We don't have enough time to visit our friends, take care of our personal lives, relax in pleasant company, chat with interesting people and just relax in a cozy atmosphere. People are often preoccupied with their problems, everyday affairs, or are simply busy at work. Meanwhile, your favorite cafe has already closed, there is no one to go to the restaurant with, and you have absolutely no energy left to go to the cinema for the last showing.

31/03/2010

A Moscow schoolboy came up with a website that blew up the Internet in a couple of months. People from all over the world now sit in front of webcams, pressing just one button to... just chat with strangers. The website www.chatruletka.ru appeared only in November last year. 17-year-old Andrei Ternovsky created it for friends. I came up with it and made it in just a couple of days. But now the “roulette” is valued at $30 million. And the author had to flee to the USA so as not to be bothered with questions.

AND The idea is simple. Essentially this is a regular video chat. People communicate with each other using webcams. There is only one unique difference that has made this site mega-popular - the interlocutor is selected randomly. You never know who you will run into in the next moment - a respectable German, a Chinese gibbering in his own language, an unbridled African American, or your housemate whom you just met on the stairs. It is this unpredictability that attracts.
But the abundance of perverts running into chat roulette is repelling. This is where the freedom for exhibitionists lies - how many innocent souls will stumble upon them before they find a normal interlocutor.

The design on the site is simple, but it’s convenient to use - it’s clear that it was done “for our own people.” There are two windows on the left - in one you are, in the other a random interlocutor. On the right is a field for written communication (in case the interlocutor’s microphone does not work or simply does not feel like talking). There are several buttons at the top. First, click on “New game” (“ New game"). The system matches you with a partner in a couple of seconds. Didn't like it? Click the “Next” button. No sentimentality or explanations. If you come across someone interesting, you can chat or correspond. Just don’t be offended if he, in turn, suddenly “spins the drum.”

Up to half a million people visit the site at the same time. About 70 percent are men. Children and pets are welcome. Fortunately, you don’t even need registration here. We go to the site, click “Start game”. We scroll through the empty screens (someone turned on the camera and left - we won’t peep). But someone left a note: “Cou cou. Ca va". I think it's in French - “Hello. How are you". Let's try to make friends. We respond to the written chat: “Ca va bien” (“Okay”). The author of the note appeared - a man over 30. Another half hour of communication - mutual exercises in foreign languages ​​- me, him and a Russian-English-French translator. But the school program is immediately remembered. And it seems that we even began to understand each other.

Okay, let's spin the drum again. This time it was a German. It’s a little easier with him - we both speak English.
- Interesting thing your programmer came up with it,” says a 22-year-old student from Berlin, lounging in front of the camera. - I’ve already found so many people here. Very convenient. I got enough sleep today and, without getting out of bed, I got to know the girls. It’s just that the language fails. I thought that I knew English better.
I thought so too. But this “roulette” is useful. Out of nowhere contacts appeared in Germany and France. In just an hour...

Fans of the “game” are already collecting a collection of strange interlocutors on a separate website - www.bestofchatroulette.com.
- Cat Man
He is dressed in a tight leopard print suit and a mask with ears of the same color, and instead of “hello” he says “meow”.
- Singing man
One of the Merton users sings songs to random acquaintances, accompanying himself on the piano. He makes up things on the go and about who he sees on the screen.
- Hanged
The pranksters hung jeans and sneakers in front of the screen - it looked like the body was dangling. Having stumbled upon such an interlocutor, some switched quickly, others were scared and did not know what to do, and some thought such a counterpart was funny.

Although the site has a simple appearance, it is constantly evolving and new services appear. The developers have added two video chat sub-options - separately for anime fans www.anime.chatroulette.com. and for users of the popular website bash.org.ru - bash.org.chatroulette.com.

And at Chatroulettemap.com you can see a roulette map. The system saves one of your photos (a frame from a video) and places it on a world map, calculating the location of the speaker using the IP address. If a person does not like this use of his image, he can complain to the site management and send another photo of himself to confirm his identity. Then the photo from the card will be deleted .

Analogs

- “Talk to me” - www.pogovorisomnoi.ru - a written chat, also arranged on the principle of randomly selecting an interlocutor, only without video communication.
- Let's talk - www.davaipogovorim.ru - a complete analogue of Roulette, but less popular. It is visited mainly by Russian-speaking users. About 200 people gather on the site at the same time.
- Omegle - www.omegle.com - allows you to have a written or video chat with a random interlocutor.

Who else among us became famous on the Internet?

Good guys:

- Alexey Pajitnov. A Soviet, later American programmer in 1984 invented the famous game "Tetris", although he was studying artificial intelligence and speech recognition. The game was created on the domestic computer "Electronics-60". The program was rewritten for IBM by 16-year-old schoolboy Vadim Gerasimov. Now Pajitnov works at Microsoft, and his programs are released under the brand “Games from Pajitnov.”

- Sergey Brin. Born in Moscow into a family of mathematicians, he moved to the USA with his parents at the age of 6. Brin became one of the developers search engine Google. Developed it as a student project with classmate Larry Page. In 1997, friends registered the website google.com. Now Google is the most popular search engine in the world. And Sergey Brin is in 24th place on the list of the richest people in the world with $17.5 billion.

- Evgeniy Kaspersky- author of one of the most popular antiviruses in the world. He received his education at the Higher Red Banner School of the KGB. Since 1989 he has been studying computer viruses. In 1991, he began to create his own antivirus. Now his laboratory’s programs are used by 250 million people in the world.

- Evgeniy Roshal. I have been programming since I was 13 years old. In 1993, when he was 21 years old, he released the first version RAR archiver(Roshal Archiver), distributed the program to friends. He continued to improve the program, and soon his archiver became the most popular in Russia. Later I made an archiver under Microsoft Windows- WinRAR.

Bad guys:

1995 - 30-year-old St. Petersburg Vladimir Levin stole $10 million from American Citibank. He was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in prison. After serving them in America, Levin disappeared.

1998 - a group of Russian hackers robbed Bank of America and received $30 million.

1999 - Vasily Gorshkov from Chelyabinsk organized a hacker group. Computer scientists hacked databases and then offered the owners to buy back the information; if they refused, they used it themselves. They earned a total of about 30 million. In 2001, Gorshkov and his friend Alexey Ivanov flew to the United States, allegedly at the invitation of a large computer company. They were arrested at the airport. Later, Gorshkov received three years in prison (and also had to pay a fine of 700 thousand dollars), Ivanov - four years.

2008 - a 25-year-old Muscovite was caught in the USA Igor Klopov. He stole $1.5 million from American accounts and flew in to collect another $7.5 million worth of gold using a bad check. Sentenced to 10.5 years in prison.

2009 - the servers of the British University of East Anglia were hacked. Hackers posted it on the Internet for public access correspondence between scientists about “global warming”. From the letters it followed that there is no warming, it was invented.

Today, the creators of unique and profitable Internet projects are not experienced industry experts, but teenagers and young people who are not even 25. Among them is Russian entrepreneur Andrei Ternovsky, who created one of the most popular online communication services, Chatroulette, back in the 11th grade.

The success story of Andrei Ternovsky began with a simple idea - to increase the number of people with whom you can communicate via Skype. But Andrey added something new to this - intrigue, thanks to which the project later became so successful: a person never knows who he will have the opportunity to talk to today. A student from the USA, a teenager from Mexico, and a welder from Moldova may appear at the window. The selection occurs randomly, and if one of the participants wants to interrupt the dialogue and see someone new in the window, he simply presses the “Switch” button and the game starts again.

The first version of the service was created in 2009 in literally two days, as the author himself says. The name came to his mind after watching a film in which the characters played Russian roulette.

At first, only Andrey’s friends and acquaintances used ChatRoulette. But the circle began to gradually expand. And in order for the site to stay afloat, it was necessary to pay for hosting and advertising to attract new users. To do this, Ternovsky needed some funds, which he borrowed from his parents. The popularity of the service began to grow, and soon Andrey returned the borrowed amount.

He was assisted in working on the site by four other programmers who worked remotely. Andrey himself managed the site simply from the comfort of his room.

By the end of the first year of ChatRoulette's existence, the number of regular users thanks to advertising was about 300 people. In February 2010, there was an incredible jump, as a result of which site traffic reached 100 thousand people per day. And already in March of the same year, Ternovsky made a statement in which he reported that the number of users was one and a half million.

Since a significant proportion of ChatRoulette visitors were Americans, the Western media started talking about the service. Reports appeared on the television show Good Morning America and in such reputable publications as the New York Times and the New Yorker. The unique website and British TV shows were not ignored. Of course, such discussions significantly increased traffic to the site.

The growing popularity of ChatRoulette has attracted the attention of not only Internet users, but also investors. Andrey Ternovsky began to receive offers from such large companies as Google and Yandex. But the author remained adamant, as he clearly decided that he would not sell the site.

Everything seems to be fine: people like the site, they enjoy intriguing conversations with strangers from all over the world, and the author of the project makes a profit. But ChatRoulette has a serious problem that a whole movement has been organized to solve.

People who visit roulette for the sake of communication and fun often come across indecent content. This also applies to the use of profanity and self-satisfaction in front of a webcam lens, which some attention-hungry individuals do not hesitate to engage in.

In order to limit users from unpleasant experiences, only adults can now visit ChatRoulette. And if a user witnesses any pornography, he can file a complaint, after which the author of the erotic show will be banned for a certain period.

This problem was actively discussed on the Daily Show, and the creators of the animated series “South Park” devoted an entire episode to this. Afterwards, the site began to be perceived stereotypically, as if only people were perverted and sitting there. However, not only users, but also the site administration continue to struggle with the problem. After all, ChatRoulette was created solely for communication and fun. And if anyone wants to show themselves in all their glory, it is better to find the appropriate service.

Today Andrey continues to manage the resource, albeit from a computer in his Moscow apartment, but in the USA. One of the investors organized his relocation and accommodation. The number of visitors continues to grow every day, just like Ternovsky’s profit.

Already in the first year of operation, the ChatRoulette resource collected more than a million visits. The popularity continues to grow and this is not surprising: the opportunity to communicate with a random person from anywhere in the world is intriguing and attractive. Here are a few facts about this service that might make you even more interested in it.

Despite the fact that the site is English-language and has an American domain, it was created in Russia. In 2009, Andrei Ternovskoy, an 11th grade student at one of the Moscow schools, created the first version of chat roulette. Over time, the site began to gain popularity, Andrey received many offers from investors, and eventually he moved to the USA. Ternovskoy did not sell the resource to Google and Yandex, but continued to manage the resource himself.

Despite the fact that every fifth user of chat roulette exposes herself in front of the camera, this is not what the resource was originally intended for. From users who go there solely for communication and interesting acquaintances, there are many complaints about those who like to show off. As a result of this, the site administration has limited access to the site to persons under 18, and also restricts access to those who have received 3 or more complaints.

According to statistics, the majority of video chat users are people aged 18 to 24 years. The second largest category in terms of population is 25-35 years old. Next come middle-aged people - 35-44. And only then those who are under eighteen. The lowest percentage are people aged 45 years and older. In terms of gender statistics, about seventy percent are men, and only the remaining thirty are women.

The site has a fairly democratic policy: on its forum there are active discussions about the functions that users would like to see on the site. The most popular discussion concerns the possibility of returning already skipped interlocutors. Many people want only girls or guys to appear in the chat. But those who visit chat roulette not to joke around, but to undress, vote for the creation of separate chat rooms for adults.

After the surge in popularity of the first chat roulette, many analogues began to appear on the Internet. But none of them became so popular. Analogue chat roulette offers can be divided by geography (some of them are created for residents of a particular country), by orientation (chat rooms for gays are very popular), or by sexual preferences (there is no limit to the variety here).

In chat roulette you can meet a lot of trolls who can’t wait to pour out their anger on a stranger and immediately dump him. Among them there are many who like to scare strangers and monitor their reactions, for example, this guy in a Freddy Krueger mask

, or this one, which uses overlayable virtual masks and special effects.

Some people use chat roulette for the opposite purpose, to make random interlocutors laugh. This bearded guy is definitely worthy of attention, as he does a very funny impersonation of Miley Cyrus.

Quite a few Western celebrities have been spotted playing chat roulette. These include rapper Eminem, actor Jason Statham and actress Jessica Alba. There are quite a few videos online with other stars, but some of them do not confirm that they used the resource. For example, rapper Snoop Dogg.

The creator of the Russian “chat roulette”, 17-year-old Moscow schoolboy Andrei Ternovsky, fled from Moscow. In the Russian capital, the young computer genius, according to him, was tormented with calls. Everyone called: journalists, friends, and potential investors. Ternovsky ended up in the USA for a reason, but at the invitation of several large investors and technology companies.

In an interview with Private Correspondent, Andrei explained what he was doing in the USA, how much money he was offered for the project and why he did not want to return to Moscow.

- Andrey, who have you already met in the USA?
- To be honest, here in the States I diligently avoided meetings in order to find time to work on the site and finally begin to develop the service. You could say that I simply escaped from endless calls, interviews and all sorts of offers to communicate.

- And yet: who have you already met?
- With businessman Fred Wilson, a correspondent for The New York Times and his programmer, who is helping me with the project (he works in West Virginia).

- The Western press wrote that you met with both Google and Skype...
- This is wrong. I have only yet planned meetings with people from these companies, as well as with representatives of other organizations. But I don’t even know what exactly we will talk about.

- Are all these investors, IT giants, making concrete offers to you or just talking?
- Usually we just have conversations. They are interested in how I plan to develop the resource, what I am going to do in general. Something like that. So far, only the Russian holding company Digital Sky Technologies has made a serious offer. They offered to purchase 10% of the project from me and offered to name the amount for which I could sell this share.

Rumors about the possible sale of ICQ by AOL have been around for a long time, but now they have been confirmed. News headlines are full of names of companies - potential buyers. If ICQ is indeed sold to one of the Russian companies, then this transaction claims to be the stupidest purchase of the year.

There have also been ridiculous offers to buy the entire project for a million dollars, but I don't take them seriously. However, I’m not in a hurry to make any serious decisions yet. In general, I just arrived, so all the main meetings are still ahead of me.

So far I have only been in New York, and only investors and bankers are here, there are not many representatives of technology companies, and they are the ones that interest me most now. Now I’m in San Francisco, so the famous Silicon Valley is just a stone’s throw away.

- Did Fred Wilson make specific proposals?
- No. There is one simple explanation for this: I am more interested in meeting technical people. What I do is draw up a precise development plan and think about why I need investment. And when this understanding appears in my head, then I will turn to Wilson, DST and other serious people. Now I am focused on the product itself, and not on its business component.

- Share your plans for service development.
- There are plans to radically change the meaning of the service. And I'm not afraid of it. But I won’t reveal the details yet. Everyone asks me about this, although I myself have not yet fully decided what to do. That's why I'm reluctant to give interviews. The only thing I know for sure is that the most interesting thing will begin when I try to make an office here and register a company. And I will try to do it all for myself. In the meantime, I’m just thinking, waiting, and not doing anything special. The same applies to the development of the functionality of the service: there are a lot of thoughts, but I don’t want to talk about them yet.

- How does Chatroulette fit in with the need to continue education? This year you are graduating from school...
- If everything works out with the site, then I will postpone the question of obtaining further education. And if it doesn’t work out, then what should I do? I’ll also put it off :) I have almost nothing to lose, I can unlearn it later. The fact is that here in the USA, you can clearly see how quickly the IT industry is developing, how many interesting things there are. I really, really wouldn’t want to miss the wave.

- Do you connect your future exclusively with Silicon Valley?
- This is still just a dream. I would really like to have my own office here and become one of the world-famous IT businessmen.

- How much have these plans already cost your family?
- It may seem strange, but I don’t take money from my family. At the start of the project, they lent me one thousand dollars, and I have already paid it back. This money was enough to launch the project at a time when it had almost no visitors. And then he began to work off his expenses. But I got to the USA virtually without any money. Some of it is paid for by my friends here, and some of it is paid for by the people who invited me here. For three days I lived with a friend, whom I had previously known only online, in some hole. But there was the Internet there. I'm unpretentious: I just need a laptop with Internet access.

- But in an interview with NYT you said that you didn’t earn a penny from Chatroulette!
- I didn’t say that, and if I did, I was lying :) It is already clear that the service can easily live on an advertising model, like other Internet projects.

I started using Google AdSense in fact from the very beginning after the launch of the project. But after a while they turned me off, arguing that I was 17 years old and had never paid the 37 thousand dollars I earned from roulette, but that didn’t matter.

By the way, I also collaborated directly with some companies. For example, there was an advertisement for mamboo.com on Chatroulette - I am pleased with the result. For the last eight days, however, there have been no advertisements on the service.

- Why?
- Because I’m a bad businessman, I want to make a cool service more than monetize it.

- How much do you estimate your project as a whole?
- I can’t give any numbers, I’m not an expert in this field. Understand, it all fell from the sky for me - fame, investors, popularity. I didn’t expect this and didn’t prepare for it in any way.

- And yet: will you sell the project or not?
- I don’t want to sell myself completely. Why do I need this? And if the project doesn’t go well with people, I will feel guilty. And when 100% belongs to me, then I am responsible only to myself for my mistakes. And this gives a feeling of freedom.

- When will you return to Russia?
- Difficult question. Actually, I have a return ticket for April 4th. But there are so many interesting things to do! Therefore, I somehow don’t want to go back to school. I will still try my best to make it here in California. You have to follow your dream.

- Mom doesn’t mind?
- I don’t ask my parents :). But seriously, they are not protesting. They're just a little afraid. But now I can’t be driven back, I flew out like a bird. Parental permission was needed only once when leaving. And since I still manage to live alone in the USA, then, in general, they have a positive attitude towards my endeavors.

They're already used to the fact that I'm a little strange. I spent my entire childhood on the Internet. Was a boy living on the Internet. And now I’m the same boy, but wandering around the States. Which, to be honest, I really like. It would be nice to travel all your life!

Have you ever wanted to work for a large IT company like Google or Microsoft? Or is your entrepreneurial spirit too strong?
- I would just say that my entrepreneurial spirit is not very developed. But my head is full of different ideas. As for working in a well-known company, I don’t even know. On the one hand, I would like to live in the USA for some time, and this requires money. I would like to work and develop my project at the same time. But I’m not in a hurry to decide anything yet, since it may well be that Chatroulette will feed me too. I don’t have any clearly thought-out plan for life. All this rather looks like some kind of crazy journey.

Interviewed by Valentin Maltsev