Chatroulette is an online chat website that pairs random users with a choice between two other users for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website begin an online chat (audio and video) with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection.
In February 2010, a few months after the website was created, about 35,000 people were on Chatroulette at any given time. Around the beginning of March, creator Andrey Ternovskiy estimated the site to have around 1.5 million users. According to a survey carried out by RJMetrics, about one in eight spins on Chatroulette yielded “R-rated” content. Parody shows such as The Daily Show and South Park have lampooned this aspect of the service, and nudity has become an established part of the site’s notoriety.
In spring 2020, Ternovskiy appointed Andrew William Done, Australian tech entrepreneur, as the CEO of Chatroulette. Done previously founded IT consultancy Simple Machines in Sydney, Australia, and before Chatroulette was CTO for rental platform Goodlord in London. Following product changes in spring 2020, and enhanced by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chatroulette’s user numbers have more than doubled between 2019 and 2020.
