Hello, Internet, and welcome to the Omegle blog! First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Leif K-Brooks, the founder of Omegle. I'm 18 years old, and currently finishing my senior year of high school. I plan to go to college next year, majoring in computer science.
It's been wonderful (and a little bit bemusing) to see Omegle gaining such huge popularity. I've been writing computer programs for many years, but this is my first project to go viral. When I launched the site on March 25th and saw it hit 100 online users for the first time, I was ecstatic. Now, just five days later, that number has grown exponentially to over 1800—and the growth shows no signs of slowing!
Watching people and Web sites discover Omegle has been a great experience. Thanks to (in no particular order) Veronica Belmont, How Stuff Works, MegaByte TV, Sarah Lane, Tess Salalac, Google Blogoscoped, and everyone else who has been tweeting and blogging about Omegle. Also, a big thank you to all of the users who have helped to make the site a success!
On the technical side of things, everything is pretty much wonderful. Omegle uses the excellent Twisted networking library, which has made scaling a breeze. I would like to say more on this subject, but everything has been so problem-free that's there's nothing more to say.
Trolls are currently the biggest problem facing Omegle. Unfortunately, a percentage of the site's user base, instead of trying to have interesting conversations, likes to harass other users through vulgarity, spamming, and so on. I consider this a very serious issue, and I'm working on methods of controlling it as much as possible. In the mean time, I hope Omegle's users will continue weathering the storm, and enjoying the site despite its trolls.
Keep Omegling, everyone!
P.S. Props to topherchris for the awesome parody!
About Me
- Leif K-Brooks
- Brattleboro, Vermont, United States
- I'm an 18 year-old guy who loves computer programming. I founded Omegle, among other things. Contact me: eurleif@gmail.com
Blog Archive
55 comments:
But I like trolling your site. It's hilarious!
While the concept is admirable, I have a funny feeling you just stepped into some serious Jenkem.
Edit: posting in an epic thread
I posted this on 4chan and the traffic increased by 400%. Where's my credit?
why the name omegle ?
You could do nifty things like simple logins and then analyzing trolls.. or let people flag trolls
What's the technology behind this ?
Oh, forgot to mention: awesome work!
New Zealand's picked up on it, same with Australia..
http://www.nzrave.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=31&topic=71102.0
I love this! I have had some really funny conversations and some not so funny, but well done Leif =)
this concept could change things
oh snap I'm typing random things as if I was in the omegle
I'm really interested in the underlying technology behind this!
Gah, this is the ultimate time waster...and very kewl one at that!
What a creative idea except for the fact that you stole it form http://www.anicechat.net/
Please protect us.
There are a lot of perverted minds in here!
DO NOT USE THIS SITE. I WENT IN AND THE "STRANGER" SOMEHOW KNEW SITES I HAD VISITED RECENTLY IN MY BROWSER.
SCAM SCAM SCAM
SOEMTHING'S UP WITH THIS.
thank you dude. this thing is great!
Don't introduce that login feature like every site does. Login sucks!
Lack of login is a USP for this site.
keep an option of flagging a user or report abuse and soon the trolls will decrease. If they are doing it continously a ip ban for 1 day will do.
this was the first time using omegle and i get a message telling me that i have been logged as being lewd...what's with this?
Stranger: This is Leif from Omegle.
We have received multiple complaints of inappropriate, lewd behavior traced to your IP address.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations will be alerted within the next 24 hours.
This is your final warning.
Leif
(802)380-4064
Omegle Inc.
The authorities will contact you within 48-72 hours. Respect the chat.
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
You will make a million off this, congratulations.
Nice work.
A simple ip based flagging system along with a system that adjusts the influence of IP's depending on times flagged/number of chats would be effctive.
You could also add a short wait since you started your last chat.
eg: If you start a chat that lasts for only 1min then you have to wait 2 more minutes before you can chat again
"I consider this a very serious issue, and I'm working on methods of controlling it as much as possible"
But please don't start censoring vulgar words or taking other measures like that. I'm sure that someone being harassed will just leave the conversation and that's it.
This website is awesome, by the way!
great idea leif!
I love how your lame site assumes everyone is american.
Please tattle about lewd behaviour of the douchebags from my site to the fbi. They have so much jurisdiction in this country.
but trolling is half the fun, ive had some amazing funny crude conversations with complete strangers, please allow us to be silly and crude, its really what makes it.
Is Omegle down now or is it just me?
I think the trolls are part of the charm. You can easily disarm them and I have seen demonstrated many effective ways to do so. Respond calmly and maturely and hold your end of a normal conversation with them. It throws them off completely. Everyone needs to vent a little steam occasionally and as there is no comeback at all on omegle (if it is truly anonymous) then all thats being thrown around are words and they can onyl hurt you if you let them.
Trolls are a part of human nature, and trying to regulate them is like trying to tell the sun not to shine.
You need to have different categories for conversation, because trolling is an important part of the site. It can't be all serious.
HEY MAN MAN IT'S NOT COOL TO STEAL IDEAS.
http://www.anicechat.net/
great idea, we talk a lot about you in France, this an article of one of the best french newspaper "liberation" :
http://www.ecrans.fr/Omegle-tchat-sous-X,6817.html
i want a Omeglebot on MSN !
"Connection imploded."
agh why has this happened twice to me already
Actually, I think the trolls are kind of half the fun. You start up a conversation, and never know what kind of person you are going to talk to...
It's exciting! And if you try to get rid of trolls, then you'll have to add logins and bans and stuff and soon it won't be unique and awesome anymore!
Just look at the conversations that people have had here, with quite a few of the conversations to trolls:http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2009-03-31-conversations-with-strangers#comments
So please just don't try to be too draconian with the troll control at least, okay?
Oh and I think a really good idea could be that really entertaining conversations could be shown to other people on the site, assuming both people in the conversation say that that's okay. Then there could be a conversation of the day kind of thing, where everyone could read the awesome conversations that you can have with this site!
I would suggest a karma scoring system where users can give a thumbs up or down on the person they just chatted with, with more weight given to ratings by users with better karma.
It's not a terribly difficult problem, it seems to me.
Omegle would be ruined without trolls. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to get that vertiginous Internet-y feeling in real time. Troll to human is a gradient.
To George.. I've talked to more Brazilians here than from anywhere else. Try again.
Trolling is the POINT of the site god damnit.
anyone work for best buy?
Awesome site. The author can count on my support :]
Better add Reddit.com to the list of sites making omegle more popular. I seen two links of screenshots using omegle and decided to check it out.
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/89eqv/you_dont_know_how_many_tries_it_took_me_to_find/
I discovered it yesterday through my friends here in brasil! i cant believe omegle is so new! i bet in a month there will be at least 20000 people online . its a nice idea and i found it funny. however, im impressed on how people never know how to explain how they founf Omegle.. haha thats funny.
Hey you, the guy from Belgium whose grandmother's name was Alli! Yeah, you who send the wierd picture of some pedo chaser in the beginning.. This is the finnish girl, i don't know why the chat suddenly ended? I liked talking to you, and it would be nice to continue.. let me know and leave a comment if you read this!
It seems like the "Connection imploded." message isa result of the user closing his browser, not a server issue.
Please let me know how I can make a site like this! mail it to me tijlminator@gmail.com :)
This site is awesome! I always wanted something like this!
bye!
its a pitty i just lost one of the best conversations in this site...
Ahh, I lost two conversations..not sure if it was my fault..One conversation was with a girl from Finland that would be my future wife ;), and then I was talking to this other girl and we were 5 seconds away from exchanging Facebook-pages and we got disconnected..
Aoei, I feel your pain. I was having a great conversation with someone then the server crashed. Such a shame.
Someone should set up a website where you can post a brief synopsis of your conversation to try and get in touch with someone you've spoken to. Like missed connections on Craigslist.
NOOOOOOOO! Don't change anything! Please! I am enjoy talking about fine arts and then yelling at people to suck my **** then play "Say the next word." Ton's of people talk about serious stuff for a 1min or 2 and then by assholes because they can! If I went on one day and found that when ever I said a "bad word" it came out as ****ed then I'd do a total WTF and stop going here and even convince the internet to stop all traffic here. The web site pretty much perfect except I wish you could select your default language to connect to. I must have disconnected from OVER 9000 conversations that started with "Brazil?" BTW: for those in the know Rules 1 and 2
Wonderful.
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