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The Rundown: Omegle is an web application for chatting anonymously online. The site was developed by 18 year old K-Brooks and was released to the public in March of 2009. While chatting anonymously is nothing new online (anyone can pretend to be anyone), however Omegle.com allows its users to be super-anonymous. Users are not required to sign-up with the website, and no personal information is collected or shared unless you want to with your anonymous interlocutor.
Good Stuff: Omegle is a great social tool to kill time when bored, or talk things out when you have something to say. I and a few friends have had a few really interesting and long conversations that have lasted well over an hour. The chatters on Omegle come from all over the world. Learning the culture and mindset of others from different countries is fascinating, and is a welcome break from life in your current country. All in all, Omegle is a good time killing mechanism that will be sure to put you in some great and diverse conversations with plenty of akward silences.
Meh. Stuff: The main problem that Omegle is running into right now is with trolls, spammers, and general idiots. Due to the complete anonymous nature of the site, catching and banning spammers won’t be easy. Having a “report user” feature that reports the IP address of the troll user would seem helpful, but masking IP addresses and using proxies are simple ways to cover tracks. All that can be done in the spam and troll control department is to hope that the good and genuine users outweigh the users taking advantage of the service.
Cash Cow? The only form of “monetization” currently being used is a small free traffic exchange banner on the Omegle home page. Omegle does not make any money from it, rather they are able to get hits from other sites based on the number of hits given to others from the ad on Omegle. Omegle could possible make a decent amount of money from direct advertisers on their home page and within the chat area by striking up ad deals with things like movie releases, music to check out, etc – things that would conceivable appeal to Omegle’s mainly high school to college-aged crowd (although completely nailing demographics will be hard due to the fact that Omegle does not collect any personal information at all from users). However, implementing ads could have the possible effect of alienating users – which are essential for the success of the site. So, advertising on Omegle is not something I would expect to see in the very near future. If and when it is implemented, it will no doubt be in a fairly non-intrusive way, and the ads will probably be geared mostly toward pop culture products and services.
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