Spin the Wheel

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

I have a curious fascination with the IDEA of this site. But I haven't yet worked up the nerve to actually look at it. Well, ok, I take it back. I looked. But I did not spin. Or rather, I did not click. It's a site...where you are randomly paired with another individual somewhere in the world...to chat with. The hickup? Webcam is on. You don't like what you see? Click "Next." They don't like what they see? Well, you can guess. So,*if* one were looking to chat with random people, I guess this is the place to go these days. I am guessing that not very far into the future, this little site will take it one step further: it will add profiling information and matching ability. I.e., collection of info like gender, age, interests, purpose of chat, etc. So theoretically you could be more accurately paired with the kind of person you're interested in talking to. I am guessing there would be a line of old, fat, balding men scratching at their screens (uh, I mean waiting patiently in line) to speak to the 23 women in the world who have a fetish for the old guys. Ok, I take it back. No one is gonna be putting up profiling because then the site wouldn't work.

Anyway, I have a girlfriend or two who have tried it out - and confirmed what I thought is likely the case: buncha guys waving their magic wands around and hoping for the best. Well, the video above says this is the case about 14% of the time, but as more people learn about this site, I am guessing the ratio might shift a bit.)

So...it's amusing to read about - and this video does a great job of showing the experience. But I don't think I am really that interested in "getting my chat on." But hey, if you want to try it out, I am happy to watch you do it. Go spin the wheel...

The really interesting part (for me) is watching the realm of a private sphere continue to fall away online. We are watching it happen in both user-selected instances - in the various social networks, as well in non-user selected...i.e. businesses collecting information about you to use in profiling as well as...simple collection of information for the greater body of information out there available to the general public. Interesting to read about the whole Google debacle over Streetview. Wonder what is going to happen there. I find that I am slowly being de-sensitized to the whole online privacy issue. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I've commented already to a few people about a blog post by Jeff Jarvis I read a few weeks back discussing the difference between privacy and the control of privacy. And I like his example of the German sauna as a metaphor for the online privacy debate.

I think we're not far away from some pretty big changes because of these kinds of applications of data and information....interesting times.