Internet Conga Line – a new take on ChatRoulette which feels safer

Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

InternetCongaLine is a new take on the ChatRoulette phenomenon. But this time serial UK entrepreneur Alex Tew has approached the issue of how you meet random people on video chat without… hitting the masturbators.

On first viewing it appears there are actually four full video and audio chats going on. Personally I suddenly didn’t feel so trepidatious, as one does with ChatRoulette. As Tew says himself, “it’s a fundamentally different experience to meet people in groups.”

Tew says that to keep the weirdos out they can aggressively moderate, plus, because it’s a group, they rely on user moderation too since you can take out more than one person at a time.

The idea is you can jump around finding interesting people to chat to via private or public IM. It’s certainly a lot less barbaric than chatroulette and there’s something about group chat that diminishes the awkwardness.

Mind you, the whole things remains quite experimental. And of course, you’ve only just heard about it on TechCrunch, so the hordes haven’t yet to arrive.

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