re-Chatroulette. There is a huge storm of Daily Mail style angst building about this site. (it twins random web cams, with hilarious results) Including a Newsnight debate that came across as a Chris Morris/Brass Eye style parody. But in all this outrage about the morals of the country. I really think these commentator's are missing the point. Tim Malbon of Made by Many summed it up best I thought;
"...It was brilliant to be reminded of how subversive and mad the Web is. In our increasingly settled, sanitised and locked down Web era Chatroulette is a timely warning to us all that we must hold on to the crazy stuff, because what it really represents is the Internet’s culture of freedom and culture of innovation..."
News sites currently awash with stats on this, but From Read Write Web has a neat set of quotes= In December 2009, Chatroulette had 500 users. Today, just four months later, the site sees 1.5 million daily visitors. That statistic alone is enough to inspire investors to beat down the door of its creator, Russian high school student Andrey Ternovskiy. "the purest form" of the Internet and its userbase, and "a great way to kill time," one of the most common uses of the social web. (Muhammad Saleem, authority on engineering virality) "I've frequently described it as a box of game pieces with no rules. Users are invited to create any kind of experience they choose given a simple set of constraints. It's inherently viral, addictive, imaginative and essentially human"
