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Chatroulette: a posh webcam?
February 15, 2010
This morning I stumbled upon an article in Guardian profiling Chatroulette, a new webcam site that, as its name implies, connects users with random strangers for live video chats. According to the article, the site “is proving a sensation around the world” - and our data certainly points in that direction. Last week traffic to the site doubled, and it became the 1,189th most visited website in the UK. That may not immediately sound that impressive, but it makes it the second most visited webcam site in the UK after Justin.tv
Aside from the random nature of the meetings it arranges, the other interesting about Chartroulette is its visitor profile. As the chart below illustrates, compared with other Webcam sites it attracts a much wealthier and more ‘sophisticated’ audience that the webcam category in general. The most over-indexed Experian Mosaic groups visiting the website last week were: Alpha Territory (described as “People with substantial wealth who live in the most sought after neighbourhoods”), Professional Rewards (“Experienced professionals in successful careers enjoying comfortable lifestyles in suburban or semi-rural homes”) and Liberal Opinions (“Young, well educated city dwellers enjoying the vibrancy and diversity of urban life”).
Whether the site is attracting these people because of its novelty value remains to be seen, but many are staying out of more than just curiosity and average session time is currently a relatively respectable seven and a half minutes. As you would expect from a site that has become a viral success, a third of Chartroulette’s traffic currently comes from social networks, with Facebook alone accounting for 23% of visits last week. And of course there is also the Valentine’s aspect to the story: how many of the people visiting the site last week were expecting to find a special someone...?
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Posted by Robin Goad at 01:54 PM
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In Categories Dating | Demographics | Experian | Gambling | Mosaic lifestyle | Social networks | Video
Comments
Interesting comment Graham, but I have to disagree with some of your assertions.
A decent webcam and a decent broadband connection doesn't cost a huge amount of money. A decent broadband connection in the UK can cost as little as £7 a month, with an average of about £15 a month. A decent highish quality webcam can be purchased for as little £20, but averages at about £45 for decent quality. Though, you can get perfunctory 'ok' quality webcams for about £10. So I don't think it is fiscal matters that are attracting this particular demographic, as these sort of costs are achievable by a significant proportion of the population.
These brackets are more likely to lead partially disconnected lives. Their lives revolve around their work, which takes up a significant proportion of their time, leaving not much play time. Chat Roulette is the lazy way of socialising – if it can be called socialising.
I don't think it will fade quite like you say. More and more people are living disconnect lives, in all demographics. The way we live our lives on the internet will only increase – there will come a point when everything we do will be 'online' and measured as such, it's already happening. It won't stop our offline interactions, but everyday offline technology is seemlessly building our online profiles.
Posted by Amber Green | November 22, 2010 12:43 PM
But wouldn't it be better to go to the cafe and start a chat with a stranger just like on the web but this time live?
Posted by just bet the damn roulette | April 19, 2011 04:53 PM
Chatroulette is an interesting phenomenon and is something several media outlets have asked me to comment on. Your data adds to the picture about this site in a useful way. For a start, the demographic you describe is useful to know. After all, to get the best out of Chatroulette you need a decent webcam and reasonably fast broadband. That probably means you need to be in the wealthier category of people.
I suspect, though, Chatroulette is merely getting its traffic as a result of significant media coverage. We live in an offline world and the companies that do the best online tend to be those which have the greatest offline coverage. Twitter, for instance, only really took off once it got massive PR offline.
The result is that people will be visiting Chatroulette at the moment out of curiosity sparked by media coverage and its associated social networking discussion.
When people realise it offers nothing very much, they'll desert it. Our online life mirrors our offline life and in that "real world" we detest talking to strangers. It will be little different online. True, I'm talking to a stranger now in this blog post, but there is a psychological difference; I can't see you and engage with you in real time which means it is rather like writing a letter. With a live webcam, different psychological processes come into play and it will be less appealing to people.
Having said all this, there will, of course, be a minority of people who are attracted by the voyeuristic nature of Chatroulette and who are in the "thrill seeking" category.
Posted by Graham Jones - Internet Psychologist | March 1, 2010 09:09 AM