Following a week’s worth of back and forth and blown off interviews, including one scheduled at 11 p.m EST, Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy finally picks up his cell phone after several rings. It’s early in Palo Alto, California, and Ternovskiy’s voice is soft and raspy. He sounds like he’s still half-dreaming.
“Just a second–I can’t talk very loudly because there are people sleeping in my room,” he whispers in his Russian accent. “Alright, now I’m outside.”
The evasive, confined lifestyle isn’t what you’d expect from Ternovskiy. Only months earlier, the 18-year-old had entertained drooling interest from the likes of Digital Sky Technologies and Fred Wilson, turning down million-dollar offers for his popular video-chatting service. The site was rocketing in popularity. Nearly every major media outlet wrote about Chatroulette. He met with the New York Times. Good Morning America explained his service to middle America. He got the feature treatment from New York magazine and The New Yorker, which gave him 4,500 words.
But six months later, the fickle followers of Web fads have collectively hit the “next” button.
Since peaking in usership in the spring and early summer, Chatroulette
has been hemorrhaging traffic, with visits plummeting close to 60% in
the US, according to Quantcast. After a brief down period in late August, the site relaunched with improved saftey features, and traffic appears to have bottomed out.
