Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I'm not gonna lie. I had a ton of fun with Chatroulette.com  today. If you don't know about it, essentially it's a webcam site where you get randomly assigned someone else to video chat with. You'd be surprised at how much fun it is to act for the camera--to an unknown audience--and with no repercussions.

For example, at Capstrat, we:

- faked old people trying to change the channel

- staged skits which included a life-size Pillsbury doughboy head

- and much more...

Other folks also took creative liberties, saying they would:

- caricature the other people

- ask people to emulate smiley faces

- and so on... 

Chatroulette is undeniably fun for a few hours. Heck, part of the fun was the "roulette" aspect, which I'll get into later. Will it last more than a month? Nope. It will soon get panned and relegated to the annals of web memes.

Chatroulette's bullet

If you play Chatroulette long enough, you'll find that you have about a 1 in 20 chance of seeing someone doing disturbing acts or saying unspeakable things. I won't go into it here, but expect to see things you cannot un-see or un-read.If you participate, this is what you must endure.

You will be exposed to the rawest of human sentiment and action. Why?

No Social Identity

Chatroulette does not require any login or, by extension, require any actions to be tied to a social identity. Users are truly anonymous and can participate with no barrier to entry, save for having a Web cam.

With no identity or reputation tying them to their actions, users are free to do as they please. Even unmentionable acts. There's no way to ban people and there are no community guidelines.

Without identity or rules for interaction, a social site risks falling into a mudpit of tirades, personal affronts and lewd behavior. There's no incentive or disincentive to act properly, so why should people? 

I'm an optimist and believe most people are inherently good, but there will always be a population that challenges this assumption. We have to account for these ruffians.

Where to go from here

When you create any social system, think deeply about how to deal with the edge cases. These are those folks who want to act in a way that's contrary to your principles. In particular, you should:

- Create short, understandable community guidelines. Be human and avoid legalese.

- Implement social identity schemes like accounts. Make people accountable for their actions.

- Build in community moderation. Let your users help you flag and cull away the riff-raff.

These are just the blocking and tackling tactics you can use to help your community thrive. The Yahoo Design Pattern library and the book Designing Social interfaces provide more exhaustive tips on designing social sites.

Editor's note: Here's a graph compiled by Todd Moy that suggests a negligible correlation between the DJI and Google searches for "puppies".