Jake Wengroff Global Director, Corporate Communications Frost & Sullivan

Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy may be a high-school dropout from Moscow, but his invention could very well be the next killer app that the social media and unified communications (UC) industries have been lusting after.

You’ve probably heard about Chatroulette, the social media/videoconferencing/chat phenomenon, from late-night talk-show hosts; you may have even have seen a few seconds of it rebroadcast on YouTube. Chatroulette has analysts, investors, technology developers, and marketing executives all wondering: Where is it headed? Will it ever be adopted by the mainstream public or IT departments?

In other words, will it ever be taken seriously?

Chatroulette works quite simply: Once you connect your webcam, Chatroulette’s almost bare Web prompts you to begin sharing your webcam screen. After clicking “Play,” a window on top of yours quickly populates with live video from a parade of strangers as they pass by–some clothed, some not. Most are there for just a fleeting moment, while others stop to chat with you via text or voice. If you are not comfortable with what you are experiencing, just click F9–or “Next”–which is most likely what the strangers are clicking to remove you from their screens, as well.

Absurd, sophomoric, idiotic, amusing, and obscene (1 in 8 “spins” yields images of genitalia, according to Chatroulette’s Wikipedia page), the site, which was launched just seven months ago, boasts 1 million unique visitors per day, with 135,000 online at any given time.

Spinning Chatroulette: What’s Ahead

Oddly enough, given its growing audience–or “community”–there is no advertising inventory available on the site. As the story goes, Ternovskiy was turned down by Google AdSense because he wasn’t 18, which is the age you have to be to participate in the program.

Youth marketers, take note: According to the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog, 87% of Chatroulette users are men between the ages of 18 and 24.

Now being courted by venture capitalists on both coasts, Ternovskiy has clearly created something many think has enormous potential. Aside from its technology and ability to challenge the traditional videoconferencing vendors–Chatroulette uses Adobe Flash to enable peer-to-peer network capabilities–opportunities for marketers to harness the site’s growing brand and popularity abound.

The main chat window is expected to eventually offer a combination of text and banner advertisements. However, as Chatroulette grows, matures, and seeks new audiences, it will most likely begin to offer branded content channels around various communities–say, car enthusiasts, stay-at-home moms, or foodies. Like other social networks, Chatroulette won’t charge end users to join these mini-video chat networks, but marketers will be able to buy sponsorships or brand the channels. Think of Advance Auto Parts sponsoring a car-enthusiasts channel, or Kraft sponsoring the one for foodies.

Like Facebook, Chatroulette will offer agencies and brands the opportunity to buy advertising space and run-of-channel sponsorships based on behavioral targeting.

Beyond Ad Spends: Demos, Displays, How-Tos, and Show & Tell

Besides spending on text or display advertising, Chatroulette will also allow a unique sponsored video-chat experience. Imagine a webcam set up in various kitchens in which Kraft products are displayed and used as cooking ingredients. Such webcams will be viewable in the cooking/foodie Chatroulette channel. If the user is not interested, then he can simply “Next” and move on–although another sponsored webcam video chat by Kraft might be just a few clicks away.

Even if the desired number of Chatroulette foodie channel users don’t stay to watch the Kraft cooking demos, it won’t be a waste of time or effort for Kraft: The webcams running in the test kitchens can capture the video, which the food marketer can repackage for later reuse on its Web site or other social networks or communities. As a trend, marketers have become quite savvy and efficient about content; they have learned to create content that can be syndicated and repackaged for other formats and media. 

As for sponsored video, this is nothing new; YouTube has been offering marketers branded channels with the ability to serve slickly produced, Hollywood-style videos—along with more unadulterated, seemingly unprofessional videos shot by amateurs in their backyards, garages, or basements—for several years. The results are compelling, and audiences love it. Chatroulette could turn out to be yet another—though entirely unique—outlet for this kind of content.

Marketers laughed at Facebook as little as two years ago, calling it nothing more than college hijinx. But now, at 400 million active users who spend more than 500 billion minutes per month on the site, Facebook delivers an audience that makes both B2C and B2B marketers salivate. Chatroulette, I predict, will reach those numbers in about three years, while cleaning up its act (at least somewhat), and growing up to play in the real world, like everyone else.

About Jake Wengroff

Jake Wengroff joined Frost & Sullivan in June 2008, and is responsible for branding, media relations, client-facing messaging, webinar programs, social media, communications training, and internal communications.