Video chat roulette: a dating format you'll love

 

Video chat roulette: a dating format you'll love

Nowadays, online dating has become completely commonplace. Indeed, it is on the web that many people now prefer to meet new acquaintances. With the development of technology, many services and applications have appeared that offer various formats of communication ways to search for partners. However, not all of them can meet the needs and expectations of modern users, who want to quickly, easily and safely make new friends, and perhaps more.

We invite you to briefly plunge into history, to see how the dating industry has developed over the past decades and where it has arrived at today. But we want to talk more not about classic sites and dating apps, but about the video chat format, because much less is said about this topic, although it is certainly no less interesting. We're sure it will be interesting for you too!

Internet chat: past and modern times

You have probably heard the names Chatroulette and Omegle. These were the first random video chat roulettes in history — they’ve now been operating since 2009 and are still popular. However, they were by no means pioneers in the field of web chat. Not even close!

It’s customary to peg the start of development of internet chat to the second half of the 80s, when the first IRC chat (Internet Relay Chat) was developed — a protocol for real-time text communication on the internet. IRC messaging was already quite active at that time, allowing users to communicate in private or even group conversations. Already in the 90s, IRC chat made it possible to search for other users by interests, age, geography, and other criteria.

Of course, at that time, using IRC chat was not easy and affordable for several reasons:

• The internet was not yet widely available. It remained slow and quite expensive, so for the average user it was virtually out of reach.
• To use IRC chat, you had to install a special client and also know the server address, which was quite inconvenient.
• Many people did not even know about the existence of such communication formats and were not really interested in them.

The situation began to change more actively in the late 90s, when one of the first web chat apps appeared that was able to work directly in the browser without the need to install a third-party client. It was LatinChat from StarMedia. It became the predecessor of such famous platforms as Yahoo Chat and AOL Chat. In these chat applications, it was already possible to comfortably communicate with users from different countries, as well as switch to private conversations. Contacts for interesting users could be saved, for example to your friends list in MSN Messenger, which was the most popular application for communication in the early 2000s.

However, all these chat services had many limitations due to the imperfection of the technologies of that time. The aforementioned LatinChat first used a JAVA applet, which has a lot of disadvantages. Later it was upgraded to Macromedia Flash, but this did not improve the situation much either — the quality of the connection wasn’t always high, and there were questions about the security of user data. In addition, it was impossible to see the other user or hear their voice in web chat apps of that time. Users could not know who was on the other side of the screen and what their true motives were. However, everything soon changed!

The emergence of the first video chat roulettes and their implementation in the dating industry

As we said at the very beginning of the article, the first video chat roulettes were Chatroulette and Omegle in 2009. Omegle initially had only text chat, and therefore the Chatroulette site became a real pioneer in this niche.

Almost a decade and a half has passed since the first chat roulettes appeared. Since then, many alternative sites have appeared, offering functions that placed them head and shoulders above their predecessors and provided users with a lot of advantages:

• Firstly, chatroulette allows you to see the other person in real time, which makes communication more lively and natural. You can see facial expressions, gestures and other nuances that can help you better understand and get to know the person.
• Secondly, it gives you the opportunity to choose people according to different criteria, such as gender, age, country, language, etc. This helps you find more suitable and interesting people to chat with.
• Thirdly, chatroulette gives you complete anonymity and privacy. In most cases, you do not need to register, fill out a profile or share personal data. You can communicate with strangers without fear of being compromised or endangered.

And of course we have to look at a few popular alternatives to Chatroulette and Omegle that have become relevant lately, and which you should definitely pay attention to:

• Videochat.Chat — multilingual video chat roulette with a built-in message translator and Stories feature just like in Instagram. The service has excellent moderation and support, which is an additional advantage.
• Chatspin — a web tool with gender and language filters, as well as AI masks that hide your face. Convenient for those who appreciate anonymity.
• MuMu — an app where you can switch to the next person with just one swipe across your smartphone screen. Very fast and convenient.
• JustTalk — a service that supports both tet-a-tet conversations and group calls for several participants. Convenient for communication with friends.
• LivU — a simple app, which has built-in video filters and masks that add variety to dating.
• Minichat — random chat roulette with gender and location filter. The service is very simple and intuitive to use.
• Monkey — a platform where you can chat not only one-on-one, but also in pairs or groups.
• VChat — a random chat roulette and social app that allows you to make friends all over the world. You can communicate via video or voice.
• Camsurf — a web service with convenient search filters, as well as a search for users by interest. Part of the functionality is available only for a fee.

As you have seen for yourself, today the choice of random video chat roulettes is really large. And during the Covid-19 pandemic, interest in them increased even more, thereby giving a new impetus to development. We will surely see far more interesting and novel apps arrive in the foreseeable future.

If you’re interested in this type of communication, be sure to try at least a few of the platforms listed. You’ll surely find something suitable for you, and perhaps even meet a person with whom you will forever connect your destiny. We wish you the best of luck!