Chat Roulette: The Element of Surprise & Discovery

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Twitter has me surfing a lot. And I like to share what I find. Here's a great video about a site called Chat Roulette. I'll let Casey explain Chat Roulette. It's a great video that somehow seems to channel Common Craft and Woody Allen. Strong work.

Surprise & Discovery
IMHO, sites like Chat Roulette tap into our curiosity. But consider geolocation sites like Foursquare and "Website Roulette" via Stumbleupon. There is an element of spinning the wheel and you might be surprised by what you find...checking in for the first time at a cafe on Foursquare and finding out a long lost friend is the mayor for example.

That element of discovery grabs you and can hardwire that site into your regular surfing habits. Sites like Chat Roulette, Stumbleupon and Foursquare are very specific examples...their functionality drives the surprise and discovery. But as you construct your social media efforts; do they include the concept of surprise and discovery?

Overthink, Overthank, Overthunk 
You're already overthinking this, I can tell. All this requires is: monitoring, response and personality.

• Monitoring: Watching the conversation about your brand. It's taking place whether or not you're watching, much less participating.
• Responding: You need to have a process internally on who handles various comments...if at all. And as Mashable notes, you need to respond quickly, even before you may know the right answer to the question.
• Personality: A good friend is in the process of moving. She took a spill while loading a U-Haul and tweeted about it. She received a tweet from U-Haul asking if she was ok. You could argue U-Haul was covering their butt after my friend fell on hers. But she was not on Twitter complaining. She did not want reparations from U-Haul. And she was genuinely impressed when they checked in on her. So impressed she told me and here I am telling you. 

Brands can surprise their customers in small ways like this that make a world of impact. And it fuels ongoing online discovery in the process.

Comments

[ScottLeamon]

This is, by far, the worst writeup yet about Chatroulette. It fails to even remotely capture the essance of the experience and makes a farfetched comparison to other networks with zero relavency. Do more research or give up on PR bottomfeading.

[Kevin Dugan]

Scott - While I appreciate all feedback, and even your opinion, you're going to have to be a bit more specific. Based on your note, it doesn't look like you really want to discuss it. But I'm happy to do so as I've used chat roulette and I stand by my post. Thanks.

[Denise Dorman]

Scott needs to learn how to spell essence and relevancy. I'm not stating an opinion, just a fact.

Opinion: I thought the article was interesting, per usual.