Is Chatroulette losing its already limited appeal?

And I mean "limited" in the sense that you must probably like male genitals if you're hanging around the site for long.

Chatroulette is an interesting concept. Basically, it's totally random, totally anonymous, chatting with people. It appears that it requires a webcam of some sort, though it doesn't require a microphone (though it would certainly help!). There's no way for anybody you hook up with to identify who you are, unless you tell them, so your anonymity is assured. The idea is that this will make people less inhibited to say and do things.

Sometimes that's a bad thing.

If you've heard anything about Chatroulette, you've probably heard how prominent the male sex organ is on it. A lot of guys seem to love the anonymity because it gives them a chance to jerk off in front of somebody and they will never know who it is. It's kinda sad, actually.

If you do a cursory web search, you'll find sites that have the "best chatroulette videos" posted (yes, while you are anonymous, you can be recorded if the person has the right software, so beware). These usually don't involve male genitals, though they do sometimes involve female nudity (for some reason, nobody wants to post male genitals for posterity...I can't imagine why).

But most of the time, these "best" screenshots or videos just involve general weirdness, like somebody dressed up like a cat:

(with thanks to Buzzfeed)

There have been some interesting Chatroulette stories popping up, like Ben Folds doing a concert on Chatroulette (you can see the various videos on Youtube with just a simple search). Some people really love the site (like Katie Baker from Wired).

But it's just so hard to wade through the junk to get to anything even remotely resembling good.

So what made me decide to blog about it today? Mashable has an article up, "Will People Still Visit Chatroulette if They Can't See Penises?"

In the article, they talk about how the 17-year-old Russian founder of the company behind Chatroulette, Andrey Ternovskiy, would like to get some investors involved. Meanwhile, traffic on Chatroulette dropped 7% in May.

"What is Chatroulette really about, though? Is Chatroulette a social utility for people to meet each other through video? Is it an entertainment tool for groups of friends? Or is it just an anonymous network where anything goes?

These are important questions for Ternovskiy to answer before a turnaround becomes possible. Legitimizing the service by weeding out the genitalia may make it more viable to investors, but it could potentially accelerate its decline, not reverse it. It all depends on how people want to use the service. Changing a user’s habits is one of the most difficult things to do. Getting people to buy into Chatroulette as a useful social utility might be a very hard sell."

One thing he is talking about doing is doing something that will filter out all of the male genitals on the site. But will "legitimate" users take their place? Or will traffic plummet?

Sadly, without some kind of change to the service, as well as something that will attract "normal" people to it, I don't see this ultimately succeeding.

It looks to me like a flash in the pan.