Technology, Chatroulette | featured news

Chatroulette is plotting another comeback! The Russian website that allows complete strangers to jump from one awkward random video chat to the next was all the rage among the Web’s tastemakers in the first half of last year, but it seems like everyone’s now pretty much moved on. The fact that the site was – and is still – frequently used by creeps who couldn’t seem to keep their pants on didn’t help much in that regard.

At one point the Chatroulette V.2 anticipation was so thick over at TechCrunch HQ that even we were, how you say, premature. But not as premature as the folks over at Chatroulette themselves, who ominously lured us in yesterday in with, “The experiment #1 is over for now.

Chatroulette has announced that it is going to take steps against the worst offenders on its service, threatening people who expose themselves to minors with the police.

The creator of Chatroulette has revealed that he is working on a way to preserve user’s privacy, following the launch of Chat Roulette Map, a Google Maps mashups that pinpoints the location of users of the service.

That didn't last long. Leave it to marketers to find a way to use any innovative new web service to promote their own ends. The latest example? A Chatroulette contest launched by international clothing brand French Connection.

Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian venture capital firm that has invested $400 million in Facebook, has apparently made an offer to buy a piece of Chatroulette, the webcam network where you can chat with random strangers. According to Spiegel Online, DST made an offer to 17-year-old Andrey Ternovskiy to buy a piece of his booming website. He has yet to say yes though, as he is traveling to the U.S. to speak with American venture capitalists before taking any investment.