How to Monetize Chat Roulette
- 27 Comments
- By Zac Johnson on March 19th, 2010
All the buzz lately on Chat Roulette has a lot of people talking… and viewing! Over 20,000 users are accessing the peer to peer video site daily. If you’ve never been to the site before, think Instant Messaging, but with live video… and who you will meet next is completely random. For anyone who has used the site, it’s easy to get turned off, scared, paranoid or completely addicted. Like everything else… once something grabs hold, goes viral like crazy and has the whole world talking… the entrepreneur mindset says “How can I make money with this?“.
First there was MySpace… early monetization was by users who could create image resource sites, mass message users and eventually MySpaceAds came along. Then there was Facebook. Facebook was very professional in the beginning and limited users on customization, which also lacked revenue generating monetization efforts. It wasn’t til Facebook enabled their own apps, which sell virtual currently, reward users or simply allow advertising. Just like MySpace, Facebook came out with their own ad management system. Now there is Chat Roulette!
Just like MySpace and Facebook, Chat Roulette went from a small project created by a kid and exploded over night. You can read the full story on how Andrey Ternovskiy, 17-year-old high school student in Moscow created Chat Roulette and where it’s potentially going.
More importantly… how can such a site be monetized. Right now the site is completely bare bones, and just shows two videos and a chat screen. If you look at the bottom of the site, you will see a link for “Dating Service”, which rotates affiliate links to various dating sites. This may be a test and pave the way for more on site advertising???
I came across an excellent video from guy named Casey Neistat. Casey did a quick case study (but complex video) on what demographics are using Chat Roulette and how who they see popping up on the video screen, greatly effects if you will be “nexted“, or have a long/short conversion.
Here are some take aways from Casey Neistat’s video.
Demographic Users: (from rotation of 90 users)
Guys 71%
Girls 15%
Perverts: 14%
83%Â Young People
17%Â Older People
(Perverts!?… wonder why this is here? Just watch the video or try Chat Roulette and you will understand)
Yes, it’s a small case study… but the video does stir up some other user responses and can get ideas flowing. It will be interesting to see how the Chat Roulette site changes with time as it will cost more to keep running, investors get involved and the possibilities of someone acquiring the site.
Watch the video below and let me know what you think.
chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.
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"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.
Wow, that was a really good movie. Oh, and that pic at the top is awesome too. My buddies and I invented the Chat Roulette drinking game. Drink every time you see a pervert.
ReplyI guess you would get drunk pretty quickly
Casey’s video is awesome, another really cool video is the one of the piano improvisation artist, check it out in case you missed it (there’s not just the video on this page, but also my opinions on Casey’s findings
)
ReplyThe title is kind of misleading. I was hoping for some ideas on monetizing. But, hey the movie is worth watching. Here is a hilarious clip from Jon Stewards on Chat Roulette. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-4-2010/tech-talch—chatroulette
ReplyMad movie making skills on the part of Casey. I didn’t give a crap about the chat roulette. but watched the entire video because it was practically an “indie movie”. I think Casie should submit that baby to Sundance.
ReplyFunny video. Chat Roulette may lead the way for some new entertainers.
Reply@:
ReplyYeah I thought that you were going to spill the beans on ChatRoulette too Zac. No worries – good trick for getting people to read your post. But yeah I was on there a little while back and didn’t see any advertising. I was wondering how they were going to monetize this myself.
Hey Zac,
I had no idea that site even existed, thanks for bringing that to light.
I guess, like most things, the early birds get the most benefit!
Thanks for the post my friend.
Wayne Vassell, signing out…
ReplyI will try it but i have got a felling that tonight its gonna be a good night LOLL
ReplyIt’s not a trick. It’s the beginning phases of looking at who is using Chat Roulette. I will write up coming posts as more information and the site continues to expand. Casey is also releasing his full report on April 1st.
Reply“If you can ignore all of the masturbators and the fuck heads!” hahahah that hvideo had me in stitches…very well made and really quite interesting.
I personally think chat roulette is a pointless website but hell yea is there some money to be made! I’m sure the creators of chat roulette will have something planned down the line and good luck to them.
Great video Zac, thanks for brightening up my day
Luke
ReplyReally well made film. I was surprised that the idea exploded like that, because I personally don’t see the appeal of it…. yet.
ReplyThat sounds interesting.The leopard looks funny in the picture by the way.
ReplyHaha, thanks for the video… but I wish you had some tips for monetizing ChatRoulette like the title promised
. It’s gotta be a tough thing to do, so I suppose the first one to do it wins, eh?
ReplyThis is the first time that I have read someone saying a pervert is equal to boys and girls.
ReplyI had not heard of Chat Roulette, but am gonna check it out now.
ReplyI first saw Chat roulette on Tosh 2.0 with Daniel Tosh.
He recorded a session on it, and it was entertaining watching people reaction, when they recognized him, but the general concept was not all that appealing.
I think they need to at least create some categories or something to make Chat roulette really take off.
Michigan Refinance
ReplyI think they need to add categories to it to make it more popular, then adds could appear by category. I saw this on Tosh.0 and it was funny, but I never tried yet.
ReplyI’m from Ukraine, and i know Andey (creator of ChatRoulette)
ReplyCasey’s video is very nice. Pity laptop
P.S.: sorry 4 my english
Loved the video.
ReplyReally,sometimes i do feel that chatroulette is just for the preverts and i believe that most of the people come to chatroulette for that purpose only.
It sounds very interesting, I never knew about Chat Roulette until now. Imma check it out right now.
ReplyChatroulette is quite a website. Used to get hammered at parties and have the whole party chatrouletting, but anyways onto your question: How can you monetize chatroulette? A few options in my mind.
1. Sell banner ads and the likes. It would definitively make the site look uglier, but at least you are making money.
2. Have a commercial every 25 nexts or something like that. That would be super annoying and probably lower the amount of people that come, but once again, at east you are making money.
3. Do a youtube kind of ad at the bottom of the video. I think that might be their best bet. Least cluttering/ugly and they will be making a ton of money because there are 20,000+ people on the site at all times.
ReplyZac, I can not wait for your post about monetization chat roulette. I am sure that not only I am still waiting. Publish it faster:)
ReplyP.S.: sorry for bad english
Been seeing a lot of Chat Roulette. Haven’t actually tried it yet but all this I keep hearing about it makes me want to bust out the web cam.
Replypersonally think chat roulette is a pointless website but hell yea is there some money to be made! I’m sure the creators of chat roulette will have something planned down the line and good luck to them.
ReplyA lot of perverts in that site. Moderation is just useless. Banning should be done once after all to stop those idiots there.
ReplyI never knew about Chat Roulette until now wow.
Replyyea.. i like ur movie and i’m 100% aagree but u didn’t talk about how people
Replyact or talks about. I found “NONE” they would spend there time talking in something serious. I don’t think that’s normal! all just talk SEX or they just NEXT you!!!!
people in this web are “EMPTY HEADS” !